Before & After Savvy

My rescue sister rescued a juvenile Savannah monitor for me a couple weeks ago. Here's a "Before & After" picture of the Savvy. He's doing great & headed to a new home soon. Glad to have helped with this with one.

Top Pic: Most Recent
Bottom Pic: the One in the Online Ad I saw

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.

Junior's Back Home (and so am I!)

I picked up Junior from the vet today. He looks good and is much more active than last week. He has even started lifting up his body and walking on all 4 legs! :O Wow! He's not actively pooping which is a concern for us, but we'll watch that for now.

He's still being tube-fed daily, getting calcium syrup twice a day, is on antibiotic shots, has twice a day baths, and will also get as much direct sunshine time each day as I can get him (hopefully Utah's weather will cooperate).

Hopefully, he starts getting better & stronger now. Metabolic Bone Disease creates weakness in the muscles and since there are a lot of muscles in Junior's digestive tract, Dr Folland thinks Junior's gut muscles are too weak to poop normally.

Here Junior is in basking in the sunshine. He is very active and alert when he's outside. I love it!

Update on Junior

I FINALLY got to talk to the vet! Junior made it through surgery just fine. They are currently waiting for him to wake up.

He had a massive ball of coconut fiber trapped in his stomach that would not have moved on its own and was preventing him from absorbing much calcium or nutrition. They were able to remove that and flush out the rest of his digestive tract.

Tomorrow they will start tube feeding him Critical Care to build up his nutrition and give him high doses of calcium to help him get over his Metabolic Bone Disease. I'm having him medically boarded at the vet for the next 5 days to make sure he gets the highest level of care while he's recovering.

The next goal for his to start pooping normally. So keep praying for poop! :)

I'll go over there later this afternoon so I can take pics of him and say hello. I'll share them when I get them.

THANK YOU to all who have donated to his surgery fund! We are halfway there. THANK YOU!

We are still accepting donations HERE.

Tiny Poop = HUGE Progress for Junior!

I woke up to find Junior had pooped a tiny bit! YAY!

And then I saw that Junior himself was no longer bloated and puffy!

His belly has been so bloated & full that he had no extra skin showing. He looks NORMAL!

Then he looked up at me after he took a drink!

This baby Savannah is the BIGGEST fighter I have ever ever had! I'm SO amazed by him!

Wide Awake Junior

I walked into my bedroom today and saw this:

Junior's eyes were open and alert. He watched me for awhile, looked around him again, and then crawled to the back of the tank where he went back to sleep.

Whoa! I was not expecting to see him alert. But I'm glad I did!

Norman's Back!

I made it two whole days before I realized that I really missed Norman.

Like really.

He may be a brat, but he was MY brat!

And he hated Joe. Like HATED. Lunged at him, tried to bite him, hissed at him.

Crazy! Joe is the Tegu Whisperer! But Norman wasn't buying it.

I drove down (120 mile round trip) and brought Norman home yesterday. I used my baby talk voice the whole time and called him "Mr Puffy Pants." I'm so happy!

You can tell Norman is happy too! ;) That's his "happy" face.

He didn't eat last night, but I'll try again tonight.

I'm SOOOO happy that he's home.

He's a brat, but he's my brat! :D

Junior pooped a Wee Little Bit!

Junior pooped this morning, a tiny pea-size nugget. Yay!

I have been super worried that the mass in his belly was blocking his digestive system and that tube-feeding him would cause lots of problems. Phew! He pooped so that should be okay.

I gave him another tube feeding this morning and will give him some this afternoon. I waited two days before repeating it because I was terrified of giving him a lot of Critical Care and having it create problems. Now that I know his guts are mostly working, I can give him more food. Hopefully with more food & calories, he'll be more active.

He did wobbly walk around his tank today. He fell over onto his back and laid there for a few seconds until I righted him. I took out the washcloth I had folded into a basking spot so there are no longer uneven ledges he can fall off of. I hope that helps until he gets more strength back.

So today's rollercoaster is a bit more up than down.

Tomorrow? Who knows!

Two Successes and a Dope Move

I got both the male & female Savannah monitors placed in good foster homes. Yay! The male is doing great, and the female went to her new home and immediately started drinking.

Male

Female

My "Dope" -- as in D'oh!-- as in Drat!!-- as in Dummy Me!-- move was that I left my tortoises outside yesterday afternoon. I didn't remember until I got home just after 9 pm. DRAT! It wasn't dangerously cold, but it was chilly. So I had to hunt around in the dark backyard to find Georgie & Otis and then pull the little ones out of their big yard box and get them all inside and under a night light so they could warm up.

They are fine, but I still felt dumb.

See? Even people you think know almost everything still make mistakes!

Junior Holding up his Head

Still no poop! But this little guy had more fight as I was giving him today's saline injection. When I put him back, he held himself up right.

His next vet appointment is tomorrow and I'll have my primary vet exam him and see what needs to be done.

Such a cute little dinosaur!

Good News for Junior

Junior woke up and moved around his sick tank a lot this morning. He was very alert too.

Then I noticed that he was able to poop out the hard urate plug that had been stuck in his belly. Yay!

It's about time for him to have his daily saline injection and then his calcium shot. Then he'll get some food and a chance to bask in the direct sunshine.

He's still very wobbly and uncoordinated, but it's a relief to see him have the strength to move around. For the first 10 hours I had him, he barely moved at all and couldn't even open his eyes.

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. 

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.

Munch at Home

In the craziness of sickly, bleeding geckos, I forgot to post that Munch was stable enough to go home. He'll be on antibiotic shots for the next two weeks and then we'll take him back to retest his blood to see if his infection is under control. But for now, he's at home where he is being loved & adored.

Milo Before & After

One of my original pictures of Milo from 2014 showed up in my Facebook "On This Day" newsfeed today. This is him playing dead because he was tired of me force feeding him and giving him shots. He was very convincing at playing dead! 

Milo took months to get healthy again. He was a mess! Once we got him over his respiratory infection and shed off his nasty sand-stained scales, he became a beautiful and mellow beardie. He never did grow any bigger though. He's one of our "Pocket Size" beardies. 

My youngest begged to adopt Milo and I let him. ;) Milo is his special buddy and we use him as an example of how mellow beardies can be. I wish I could clone him.

Here's Milo now. He is always happy to play dress up with me for my Etsy shop. 

Before & After of Phoenix, the worst of the Fire Victims from April 2016

Phoenix and 3 ball pythons were in a wooden box/cage that caught on fire. Phoenix pushed his way through the burning wood to escape, leaving him with half of his face burnt off and a large burn on his back. One of other ball pythons followed out of the burning box but died later that day. The two remaining ball pythons burned to death. 

Phoenix was the worst of all the burn victims. We were afraid that his eye was destroyed by the fire along with his lips and heat vents. He was severely emaciated and badly dehydrated. Dr Folland and I did not believe he would survive. We tube fed him multiple times to give him the nutrition to fight his burns. When he finally started to shed off the burnt skin, we were shocked to see movement in his eye! SHOCKED! His eye ball seriously was a shriveled up rock. He has most of the vision in his eye now. Half of his mouth still flares outward and he has areas of white, pignmentless skin, but he looks SO much better than we ever thought he would. 

You can see why we named him Phoenix. This poor blood python was sadly dying from poor care before the fire and literally crawled through the fire to a new life. 

Update on Noel (sorry it's overdue!)

First, let me apologize for the gap in posting. My family and I went on a quick vacation this week and the new iOS update on my phone will not work with my Blogger app. So no posting. :(

I left all my critters in the care of one of the techs who works at my vet's office. He did a great job taking care of my little zoo and especially caring for Noel. Everyday he let me know what Noel was doing and what his energy level was, etc., and everyday I told him what he should do next.

On Wednesday, Noel ate a couple pellets by himself. On Thursday, he had a lot more energy when he got his syringe feeding (which we bumped up to 2 cc's) and ate more pellets. On Friday, he ate a single super worm! This afternoon when I got home, I got him to eat 4 roaches. He, obviously, does not like worms but does like roaches.

Eating still exhausts him and he ends up napping after he eats. But he is so much more alert and aware than he was a week ago. He doesn't have a lot of muscle tone in his arms and legs and doesn't use them much. His eyes are still half closed most of the time-- I did get a nasty glob of junk out of one of them. He's definitely better now than he was a week ago! I think by next week he'll be ready for a check up at the vet.

Noel's Christmas Gift for You!

Noel has a Christmas gift for everyone who has believed in his success:

he was drinking on his own just now!

He had moved off his hammock for the first time today (it is exhausting for him to move because he is SO weak and has such poor muscle tone). I moved him over to his clean water bowl and flicked my fingers around in the water to make it move (*that* is the key to getting a beardie to drink out of a water dish-- the water MUST be moving. That's why most of them drink in the bath).

All beardies close their eyes and flatten out when they are drinking, and it warmed my heart to see him doing it for himself. I was going to give him Pedialyte tonight, but now I won't.

When he was done, I put him back on his hammock so he could rest. 

I tried to take a video, but it didn't quite work. He is so SLOW at moving that 15 seconds go by between eye blinks. He does follow me more though when I walk into the room. 

Noel's Christmas Breakfast

Noel got a merry Christmas breakfast of 1.5 cc's of a nutritional slurry (baby food squash, Pedialyte, and Critical Care).

He was much more peppy as I fed him. He's tracking me more with his eyes and moving his head more.

Eating wore him out though.

Noel's Stinkeye

This afternoon, I gave Noel his second saline shot. Oh boy! He fought me! I was so excited to see that. I didn't even get it all in because he was not having it. His eyes were open for the first time today when I got him out.

Here he is after I put him back, giving me the big old stink eye. Plus he was interested in watching my dog Belle who was walking around the front of his tank.

He's still pretty sedate and sleeps most of the time. But he's showing good signs of progress. It is just slow and steady.