Tortoise Bathing

I'll be the first to admit that reptile bathing is the hardest thing for me to do with all my rescues. Now that the weather is warmer and the tortoises are outside more often, I plan to be better at soaking them all weekly. 

Here's today's bathing pics: 

The big guys-- 

The babies- 

The bigger babies-

The aftermath- 

I'll be buying a plastic wading pool and bathing them outside soon. Much easier to clean. 

My Babies came Back!

My friend B fostered my two Torty babies for the last couple months. They came back today so they can spend as much of the summer as possible out in my backyard. 

They both grew!! It's so exciting to see. 

Before they left-- 

Today- 

On Feb 1st, T-bear, the sulcata, was 108 grams. Today he is 174. 

Half Pint, the red foot, was 136 grams on 2/1. Today he's 162.

Being on the grass in the sun this summer is going to help both of them grow big & strong. :) 

But not Nova

A local pet store (that I adore) took my babies today. I totally trust them to find the twins and Feisty Bits a good home. 

But they didn't want Nova because of his stumpy tail. :( 

So I brought him back home. 

Nova is going through his grumpy teen phase currently. Plus I had to force feed him so he extra-specially hates me too. I'll make sure I keep him & LilBit away from each other so they don't attempt to take me down in the middle of the night! ;) 

Remy's PJs

Remy was shedding again and his white shed made him look like he was wearing pjs. And then all of the sudden, his shed split and he popped out of them. 

Shedding babies are adorable! 

My Little Peanuts!

Dragon-- 

Remy--

Click-- 

Clack-- 

Lucky aka "Feisty Pants"--

I had to hold on to Lucky to keep him from lunging at my face. :( 

This is why I have a Tortoise Problem

This is Tiny Tim Two. He's a 2 week old sulcata tortoise. 

Even my non-reptile friends find him to be adorable. 

And he's mine for now. Not really a rescue but a new (tiny) addition to the zoo. 

He's only 40 grams! That will change quickly! Heidi, my 2 year old sulcata, has put on 100 grams in 2 weeks. Wowsers! 

The Three MBD Amigos

Peanut who has the most rubbery bones and moves the least. He walks on his wrists and army crawls. 

Lil Bit who is the most active, eats the most, and has the most personality. He walks and moves totally normally. His bones are still soft. 

Saphira who is the oldest and the smallest. He has soft but not rubbery bones. 

Saphira, rescue 101

Another MBD baby came today. He'll fit right in with the other two. :) 

Saphira is supposedly 8 months old but he's tinier than LilBit who is 5 months old. 

He walks on his wrist and has a little hump on his back. 

His bones are soft but not rubbery. He'll get extra nutrition and love. That should help him heal. If I can, I hope to get all three of these babies a Calcitonin shot soon to help pull calcium back into their bones. 

I think I finally picked Names

Peanut (the leatherback) and Lil Bit (the little one with a stumpy leg). 

Tiny Tiger, rescue number 72

Baby beardies are adorable little holes that you throw money into by way of tiny insects! If you buy a baby, then plan on LOTS of money on feeders. 

Tiny Tiger came to me today from his owner who could no longer afford to feed him. He is 2 months old and had half of his toes chomped off by a tank mate. Poor baby.

He seems to be totally healthy and should be easy to place. :)

Sweet Xena

Xena grew weaker and more lethargic over the weekend. She was obviously dehydrated and not absorbing any nutrients or fluids from being force fed Critical Care. Her eyes looked sicker & sicker. 

This morning Xena's little beard was black and I knew it was time to let her go. My vet put her down at 9 am this morning. She was semi-comatose by the time I got to the vet. 

Poor little girl is now free. No more sickly body that won't work right. :) 

I spy with my little eye... A baby beardie belly

Xena has gained 1 gram in the last two days. She's up to 9 grams. 

Baby Steps

Baby bearded dragons are HARD! They are so small that there is no room for error. A big beardie with some fat could go a few days or weeks without the risk of a dying. A baby beardie doesn't have that luxury- malnutrition, dehydration, and poor lighting have an immediate and profound effect.

I've lost more babies than any other age of beardie since I started my rescue. Sometimes we try to save babies that are genetically unable to survive to adulthood and end up prolonging a life that would have ended quickly in the wild. It's so hard to know when to actively rescue or when to provide "comfort" measures. 

Usually, I tell my beardies (especially the babies) that I won't quit until they do. 

Xena seems determined to stay alive and I'm just as determined to help her. She's had 3 doses of Lefeber's Critical Care carnivore formula given to her in a syringe. She has pooped twice and appears to be more active. 

Today she is 8 grams. I didn't weigh her yesterday because so was letting her adjust to her new environment.

It is a matter of baby steps forward now, trying to keep her warm and hydrated and fed. Hopefully the extra high-quality nutrition is all she needed to start to thrive. 

Xena, rescue number 65

Xena has had an amazing owner who has researched and studied and tried SO hard to get her to be healthy, but nothing has worked. She won't eat on her own and isn't growing normally. He'd been giving her a drop of baby food every day because that is all she would take. :(

I think Xena is a classic case of "Failure to Thrive." For whatever reason (genetic), she is not healthy and doesn't have the drive to eat. I suspect it has a lot to do with the inbreeding it took to get her "fancy" colors and such. 

For now, she's in a sick tank and I'll force feed her Critical Care twice a day to see if we can get some nutrition into her. Some times babies get so depleted that they don't have the energy to eat and then they just spiral downwards. Or, it's possible, the nutrition will expose a genetic flaw internally that will end her life. It's hard to say at this point. Only time will tell. 

Babies are tricky. An unhealthy mother or an undernourished pregnancy and pre-pregnancy can create deficits in the babies that no one can over come. That's why education is SO important before breeding! 

The Dark Side of Rescue

A friend brought a baby beardie to me tonight. He was so sick. He had blood coming out of his mouth from mouth wounds and possibly a broken jaw from being force fed. He was in terrible shape. I wasn't willing to count him out, but I didn't have much hope.

I wrapped him in a softie and tucked him in my shirt. He died just a few moments ago. This poor beardie was stuck in a plastic box in the back room of a pet store for over a month! A MONTH! They didn't follow corporate company policy and they never took him to a vet. They let him die slowly and painfully. They forced him to eat crickets and worms, they forced critical care down his throat, they forced him so much that his poor little jaw broke. They stuck in their sick room on October 19th! I totally could have saved him at that point.

I'm so tired right now that I can only be half angry. This little nameless beardie died for NO reason. He could have been saved had a manager done his job.

The lil guy will be buried in my herb garden tomorrow along side the other babies who have passed on. Sickly babies break my heart a little bit at a time-- especially when they didn't have to die.

-------------Update 11/25/13 ---------------------

My friend who rescued the baby named him Oengus, an Irish god of love, youth, and poetic inspiration.

Ziggy, rescue number 33

I took in Ziggy today. He's a 6 gram, 2 month old baby with a bent tail. He's a good eater and will be easy to rehabilitate and rehome.

He'll be my 11th baby this year. Yeah, I know what I said about babies.... :)

The Color Babies... Final Update

The color babies finally grew enough to shed and were eating great on their own! So off they went to one of my favorite pet stores: RockStar Pets in Tooele. I trust RockStar to do a good job taking care of them and will sell them to people who know what they are doing. I dropped off the babies & picked up Raji.

The Color Babies, rescues 26 through 30

Since these 5 little baby beardies came last week, my life has not been calm or easy. They require continual care and it's been a struggle to feed them. Until yesterday, I fed them by using the end of a toothpick to drop formula onto their mouths.

Yesterday, I got serious though. Thanks to my amazing vet, Dr Doug Folland at Parrish Creek Vet in Centerville, Utah, I got supplies that have made feeding time MUCH easier.

LaFeber's Emergency Exotic Carnivore diet and a 1 cc/mL syringe with part of a cat catheter on the end. The new syringe fits perfectly in their mouths and I can feed them a tenth of a cc twice a day. No more drops on toothpicks! Hooray!

So here's the babies:

Pink
He's only 4 grams, but has always been one of the more active ones.

Yellow
He's only 3 grams and has done really well lately.

Green
He's only 3 grams and has always been one of the sicklier ones. Dr Folland discovered some sort of lump in his belly yesterday. I'm hoping he'll pass it on his own and not end up having a serious problem with impaction.

Blue
He's the other sickly one. In fact, I didn't think he'd make it past last Friday. But he's still alive & kicking. He weighs between 3 and 4 grams.

Purple

He's my most active baby and weighs 4 to 5 grams. 

They are now getting all the nutrition and care they need to survive. It's up to them to put forth some effort to live. I sure hope they make it!

Babies & Hospice Care...... Again........

It's a long story. And I'm a glutton for punishment. And I have 5 sickly baby beardies now. 

But I also have a new "system" for keeping them alive: color coding for identification, more frequent & smaller feedings, and lots of heat. 

The babies with their colors

My emergency supplies box & a chart with their colors & weights

In their tank

Not sure how many of them will actually survive. I expect one in particular to die by this weekend. I think he's too far gone. But at least now I can be sure that each one is being fed and each one is being weighed. They are so tiny (the smallest is 3 grams) that missing even one feeding would be catastrophic.