Helping Rescues

Sometimes I will help someone with their sickly bearded dragon with the goal of reunification instead of surrender. I have been helping two of those in the past week/month.

Lilly had the start of MBD and hurt her back. I've been helping get her calcium back up and watching to make sure her injury didn't cause bigger problems. Lilly has done great and yesterday she went home. Her owners are thrilled to have her home and they reimbursed me for my costs and the supplies I sent home with them.

I'm always happy to teach owners how to be better owners. Lilly is a cutie too. She will be fine now even if she doesn't actually ever get much bigger or always has a bit of a bump on her back.

I'm also trying to save Baby Raptor, a "fancy" bearded dragon baby from a national chain pet store. He's definitely a "Failure to Thrive" baby and I'm not sure if he's going to pull through or not. I force feed him twice a day and he has more energy to fight my tiny syringe. He's pooping normally and moves around to regulate his heat. He's just so TINY!

I wish I could get him to eat on his own again, but so far he's not interested. I just will keep doing what I'm doing until he either starts eating on his own or his body shuts down and he dies. If he survives, he has a family at home who is anxious to have him come home. I offered to take him because I've got so much more experience feeding tiny babies. He's the size of the Color Babies I tried to save a couple years ago.

I got to see the Color Babies today!

Today I helped transport a black tree monitor lizard (see below) from Layton to Tooele. 

In Tooele, I went to RockStar Pets (one of my mostest favoritest pet stores EVER) and I got to see the three color babies they bought from me last month. They are SO big! And healthy!

Here's Purple, waiting by the door for his morning meal. He got too feisty to be with the other two, so they put him in his own tank.

Here's Pink & Yellow! One is on the front glass, the other is on the log (right under the exclamation point in the picture).

There's a good chance they'll go to new homes this week. Hooray!

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.

Color Babies Update

The babies have entered the "Cute Black Hole of Eating" stage. They can't seem to get enough to eat. A couple days ago, Pink ate so much that she ended up throwing it all up. Ay yi yi. Purple is working on his 2nd shed since I got him and is about 9 grams. Pink & Yellow haven't shed yet and are still only about 6 grams. Once they shed, I'll know they are growing enough to adopt out. 

I'm still trying to decide how to best place them for adoption. I have 10-gallon tanks I can use and just create their own setups to sell... not sure how involved I want to get with their supplies. They are fine together now that they are little, but will do better being separate when they get to be "sub-adults" (over 6 months). 

All three of the babies have really cool tiger striping and pretty colors. They are always sitting on each other now, trying to tell the other ones that they are boss.

L to R: Purple, Yellow, & Pink

Update on the 3 Color Babies

The 3 babies are now the 3 Amigos! They eat like pigs. I don't have to hand feed them anymore. I figure I will give them a week or two more and then find homes for them.

Brothers: Blue & Green

With the advice of my vet, we put Green & Blue to sleep tonight. They were both doing very poorly and were struggling to breathe. I watched them all day to see if there was any improvement, but they continued to deteriorate. Green started having full body seizures every time I touched him.

I agonized over it and finally decided it was time. :(  They are buried in the herb garden with the other babies that came from the same parents in an earlier clutch.

Color Babies Update

All 5 babies are still alive. All 5 ate twice today and pooped and slept and moved around. Even Baby Blue. I'm surprised by their resilience. Stubborn little buggers.

I won't give up on any of them until they draw their last breath. At this point, I'm sure that Purple, Yellow, and Pink will be fine. Yellow was the only one to eat a roach yesterday and today. Even Green is doing great. And Baby Blue is just hanging in there still. :)

Color Babies Update

Baby Blue is still hanging in there. Poor little guy barely holds his head up any more. :(

His belly is sorta sunk in even though I'm still feeding him twice a day. Most of the time he props himself up onto something so his head is higher than his body. He doesn't seem to have the ability to thrive, but yet, he doesn't seem to want to die.

Green is doing great! He's up and moving all the time. Yellow, Pink, and Purple are super active too now.

Purple has always been the healthiest baby-- that's why he got the color Purple because it's my daughter's favorite color and she didn't want to give it to a sickly baby that would just die. Purple has started eating on his own and is shedding! It's SO cute when the tiny ones shed! I have no doubt this guy will live & be healthy.

I thought I zoomed out enough with this pic to get Yellow in it too. He was on the branch just out of the top of the picture. I don't normally feed them till 9:30 or 10 am so they have plenty of time to warm up and become active. I wouldn't want someone shoving a plastic tube of mush down my throat first thing in the morning! ;)

From L to R: Blue, Green, Pink, Purple

The Babies Outside

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!