Adoptable Beardies

I have a couple of beardies that are available for adoption. I will give higher priority to people who can pick them up here in Salt Lake City Utah, but I will consider shipping ($40 adoption fee plus you pick up actual overnight shipping costs to US only).

Chance, around 8 months old, most likely male 

Diego, 2 years old, male 

Noel, ~1 year, male 

Poncho, 3, male 

Quasi, 5 months, unsure of gender

Noel's Weights

As of yesterday, I have had Noel for 5 whole months. He first weighed 62 grams when I got him before Christmas in his half-dead state. Today he is 5 times that weight at 328 grams!!

He's still growing too! And he's SO red!

He pooped all over his favorite orange hammock and I gave him a girly one as a "Back up." He was not amused. He's definitely a boy! Every morning he does his beard exercises.

Click HERE to see what he looked like when I saw the ad for him.

An Empty Roll Call

My house is empty. My heart still feels a bit empty.

But it is sunny and I have my beardies in the windows and decided to take pics for a roll call. 

Ziggy

Norman

Flame

Max 

Milo 

Noel (will be available for adoption soon!)

Noodle, a foster corn snake 

Raptor (will be available for adoption soon!)

Not pictured (because I'm too lazy to walk around and try to take pics of them! ;) )-- 5 baby chickens, 1 hedgehog, 2 dogs, 4 tortoises (outside), 2 ball pythons, 1 crested gecko, a leopard gecko, and 1 box turtle (outside).

Today's Vet Visit

Today was a BIG trip to the vet. I took Kiwi the chameleon, Noel, Tiger, and the female gecko who had been chomped on by her mate.

Kiwi passed her exam with flying colors! Her bones are strong, her casque is firm, and she gained 4 grams. She is ready to move on with life. Woo hoo! Even Dr Folland said she had an amazing transformation. :) I didn't take a single pic of her. I mostly left her in her ice cream bucket because she hates being held & looked at.

Noel has doubled his weight since I took him to the vet last and tripled his weight since I rescued him. He's such a handsome boy. He's already getting ready to shed again.

Noel decided to poop while we were waiting for the vet. OH BOY! It smelled SO bad! I let them do a fecal test on it and it turns out that Noel is loaded with coccidia. We'll be treating him for that. He has an eyelid defect that makes his eye get really goopy and I'll give him two different eye drops for a week to see if that helps.

The female gecko actually looks good and acts good. Hopefully she'll start eating on her own soon. No pics of her.

Tiger did NOT like his vet visit at all. Poor guy is very miserable & sickly. His breathing is labored, his mouth is yellowing, his eyes are swollen, his nose is dripping, and he has severe diarrhea. We have exhausted almost all possibilities with him except for the $500 CT scan. Even that is not likely to show us anything that can be actually fixed. My daughter adopted him after her beloved beardie, Lizzie, died and she's loved on him ever since.

After Dr Folland examined him thoroughly, Tiger looked terrible. He folded his arms across his chest and kept his eyes shut tightly. :(

By the time we left, Tiger was looking less deathly.

It's hard to know what to do with him. He had a really bad beginning and was practically dead when I rescued him. This is what he looked like: 

Sometimes it's just not possible to ultimately overcome a bad beginning. I'm not sure what we will be able to do with Tiger next. I'm honestly going to have to pray about it and talk to my husband and daughter about it. $500 is a lot for a test that is not likely to show us something we can fix. 

Another hard part of rescue. 

Sickly Tiger worries Teddy

I had Tiger out tonight so I could see how his breathing sounded. He's been sick lately though we haven't been able to figure out what is wrong with him. He sounds worse tonight than he ever has. He's got a vet appointment in the morning and I'm hoping maybe his symptoms are more obvious now that we can figure out what is happening.

Every time Tiger took a wheezing, gurgly breath, Teddy (who had to sit on my lap too) showed deep concern.

I tried to take a video of Tiger's breathing, but he stopped gasping and gurgling every time I had the video feature on. Hopefully he'll do it tomorrow for Dr Folland so we can figure out what is wrong and how to fix him.

Tiger's eyes are hugely swollen and they leak tears/fluid. His nose leaks fluid too. His mouth seems abnormally red. His breathing is labored. This will be the 4th time we've taken Tiger back to the vet in the past 3 months. His blood work and physical exams have all been fine. Perhaps he had an early onset respiratory infection that wasn't showing up yet?? I'm stumped. Dr Folland has been stumped. Tiger is worse now and I'm hoping that will make it more obvious what we should do now. We've tried antibiotic shots, antibiotic eyedrops, flushing the eyes with saline, flushing his nose with saline, anti-inflammatory eye drops, etc.

I'll update you tomorrow.

Noel is also going back in because his eye never cleared up, and Kiwi will hopefully get an "All Clear" report for her MBD and broken bones.

Another post about Sand

If you've read this blog, you've ready *many* posts about the dangers of sand. I'm not going to get in to that. You can click the "Sand" label at the bottom of this post and it will take you to other posts where I rant about how bad sand is. For this post, I want to focus on the aesthetics of sand.

One- sand makes your beardie dirty & stained. Look at the difference between Noel's belly after being on a solid substrate and being on sand. The sand side of the picture shows when his belly started to shed. The solid substrate side shows how clean his leg is until it reaches the old skin that hasn't shed off yet.

Gross, huh?

Two, sand & the even-worse walnut shell STINKS! Hand me a beardie and let me smell him and I can tell you right away if he's on sand or on a solid surface. Sand beardies smell SOOOO BAD! It's hard to keep the sand clean and bug/parasite free and it breeds stinkiness.

So get your beardie on a solid surface (tile, slate, laminate, shelf liner, paper towels) than for no other reason than you want him/her to be prettier and smell better. Their guts & digestion will thank you too.

Two More Pics of Noel

I wanted to make a side by side comparison pic of Noel and had to take a different pic of him. That's when I noticed his belly shed was peeling off. I had to take a pic to show the difference between the real Noel and the nasty sand stained Noel. 

Crazy, huh? I can't wait until his feet and tail are normal looking again. 

Here's the Side by Side pic I made of him.

Yes, I promise it's the same beardie! 

Noel, Before & After

Usually I wait at least 6 months to make a "Before & After" post, but I'm making an exception with Noel. This little boy is THRIVING! It's amazing to watch him.

Remember Noel? I rescued him two days before Christmas after seeing this photo of him.

He weighed a mere 62 grams and was at least 9 to 10 months old.

He has doubled his weight in 6 weeks! Woo hoo! And he's shedding!

He has the most beautiful & intense yellow & orange colors filling in on his face. I can't wait for him to shed off the nasty grey-stained scales on his feet & belly. It makes him look so sickly.

Noel still has a crusty eye build up that I'm watching. It's only in the one eye now.

He tends to think my fingers are food and he tries to bite them when he sees them in his tank. He tried to eat my finger as I took a close up with my phone. Sometimes he stands up on his two back legs and hops around as he tries to eat my fingers. Every time I get my phone out to take a pic, he goes right back to normal.

He's got lots of spunk and personality. He loves to snuggle in his blankies with me but he's so restless that he doesn't hold still for very long. He shifts his position every few moments until he's poked his head out, looks around, and wants to start playing. Silly Noel.

He truly is a joy to have. He's come so far in such a short amount of time.

Kiwi and Noel at the Vet

On Monday, I took Noel and Kiwi back to the vet for checkups.

Kiwi still has soft bones from the MBD but is making progress. She has put on some weight (thankfully since I'm still tube feeding her everyday). Dr Folland gave her another shot of calcium and another shot of Calcitonin (a steroid that helps pull calcium back into bones). He thinks she'll be good in the long run. Her back legs are still very rubbery and she has little to no control over them. That should change as they become firmer and she gains strength.

Eventually, Kiwi will be shipped to my friend in California who adopted Newt and Akime & Lotus and Hazel and my baby tortoises. It's a chameleon rescue that I absolutely adore! Kiwi will be given a specially made "handicapped" play stand that she can be on indoors and outdoors. California sunshine is a great cure for MBD.

She will go back for another check up in a month or so to see how she's doing. It will be March or April before it's warm enough to ship her. That gives me lots of time to get her strong again.

Noel was 62 grams when I rescued him right before Christmas. On Monday, he was 95 grams. He is doing SO much better. They took an x-ray to see what is in his belly and didn't find any hard substrate. For some reason, he has a soft tissue mass in his belly. But we are going to leave it alone for now and watch it.

Noel is finally starting to shed and has the most beautiful yellow coloring starting to show through. His beard is streaked with yellow instead of that crap brown staining. I'm so excited for his body to fully shed so I can see how beautiful he is.

This little guy has so much spunk and personality! He LOVES food, but hates when roach legs touch his mouth (he spits them out). He loves to be held but he can't hold still. He likes to stand up on his two back legs to try to catch food (I keep trying to take a pic, but he doesn't hold still for me). He's spunky and attacks the syringe when I feed him Critical Care (for extra calories). He LOVES that syringe! It's funny to watch.

Noel's Hard Day

Noel seemed rather sickly today. His eyes were mostly closed and rather sunk in. He didn't move much and wasn't very alert. He had me worried. 

I took him out for some snuggle time in a blankie. That helped perk him up.

I left him on a heated corn bag on my pillow.

And then I held him on my lap in the sunshine for awhile. 

When it was time to leave, I gave him a couple cc's of warm Pedialyte and put him back in his tank. When I returned home later, I saw he had passed a pea size urate plug. I'm really hoping that this urate plug was what Dr Folland felt in Noel's belly at the vet the other day. He did seem to perk up after that.

Tonight he and Neville both got to snuggle in blankies with me. I put Noel in my shirt first so that he'd be sound asleep by the time I added Neville (just in case Neville was restless or scared). It took Neville just a few minutes to look around and unwind and then he fell fast asleep! Progress! Last night, it took him over an hour to relax enough to sleep while I held him. Great signs.

Also, Baby Sawyer seemed to poop okay today. He was a bit bloated today and I worried that he was getting constipated. Sometime this evening he was able to have a fairly normal looking poop. Woo hoo!

Reptile Roll Call for January 5, 2017

Here's most of my reptile zoo (minus the 3 ball pythons who didn't want to leave their hides to have their pictures taken; I have Lucy, Sunny, & Bones). Also, Gumby, the MBD leopard gecko didn't want to come out either.

First the Torts. I only have FOUR! That amazes me. 

Georgie, my female Leopard tortoise 

Hermy, my hibernating Desert tortoise

Leo, the happy little Russian tort

Otis, our house tort

And now my beardies-- 

Baby Sawyer, with a little pudgy food belly

Dash, my old man who is shedding

Flame, who is also shedding 

Gen, my big girl who is sorta bruminating

Max, my big boy who is 6 years old

Neville, the latest addition 

Noel, who is looking sickly this morning

Smaug, my big boy who is looking for a home as the ONLY beardie

Tiger, who has been wheezing again :( 

Ziggy, who has pretty much trashed his tank in the last few days 

 And last, but not least, Lady Squinty Dink the Dainty Skink of bluTonguesville!

Couldn't get the lighting right for a good pic 

We also have two dogs (Belle & Teddy) and a hedgehog (Pixie).