Iguana Rescue

I helped with an iguana rescue tonight. The poor little guy was stuck in a small, dirty cat carrier and left in an abandoned apartment. The guy who is taking him in brought him to me for a wellness exam on his way home. I was expecting a mean & nasty iguana.

Instead I got this guy. Isn't he adorable? He looks like he's smiling. I pet his head and he fell asleep.

He is severely underweight, but I saw no evidence of metabolic bone disease. Phew! He does have a toe that will need to be amputated-- it looks like it was a compound fracture and still has an open wound. He is missing all but one claw on his front feet so he'll never been able to climb like a normal iguana. Poor little dude.

How can someone just abandon him? or ANY pet for that matter? How can they sleep with themselves at night?

I'm super grateful I could help get this guy fixed up and am glad he is now in a situation where he will be loved.

Happily Ever After Updates

I love seeing pics of my adopted out beardies! I love to see them fat & happy & loved. Here's a few I got this week:

SQUIGGY!!! ---Look at how big he is! He looks like a normal beardie!

Ziggy-- now "Jack"--

Nubs-- Look at that belly! He's so cute! 

Beardies Need Blankies-- my next fundraiser for rescue

I love giving my beardies softy blankies and warm corn bags! It's one of my favorite parts of rescue is watching a sad, neglected, or sickly beardie snuggle up into a warm blanket and sleep.

So to raise funds for rescue (mine and others), I've been making special softy blankies with matching corn bags to sell. You can buy just the blanket or just the corn bag or both. I'll even figure out how to ship them cheaply & safely.

The blankets are made out of soft flannel with very little outward stitching so there is less for your beardie to catch his nails on. They are machine washable too.

They come in small (for babies) and large (for adults) sizes. Eventually, I'll make some jumbo sizes for big beardies.

Large blankies

Small blankies

 The corn bags are made out of the same soft flannel and will come with simple instructions on how to heat them up for your beardies. The corn bags aren't machine washable. Sorry! The corn will sprout in the wash! ;)

 You can buy them separately or in a set and pay for them via my PayPal account and I'll ship them out to you. I'll get more details up via my blog and my rescue Facebook page in the next few days.

Fishies make great blankies!

All the proceeds of these goes to fund rescue efforts for me and for other organizations. Recently, I donated $10 to help rescue a whole tank full of reptiles in Illinois.

Stay tuned!

GO HERE for the prices & patterns & shipping info!!! 

Gem, rescue number 36

I actually paid $20 for Gem yesterday because he needed to get out of the home he was in. His owners weren't bad, but they didn't know better and honestly expected their 8 year old to take full responsibility for Gem's care. And in this case, what the child didn't do and what the parents didn't know hurt Gem. 

At Kaitlund's house until I could get him

He was kept in a 20 gallon tank filled with crushed walnut shell (I HATE!! that stuff), with no UVB bulb, and with a weak basking light (maybe 80 degrees at best). For the past few weeks, they fed him bananas. 

Yes, bananas. Nothing else. 

He was COLD! It has taken 24 hours to get his temperature back up. He freaked me out because I brought him home and he went totally black. I've seen beardies get black before, but never like this. He was doing much better this morning. 

I put him on a warmed rice bag and that helped him a bit. Then I left him alone in my room so he could calm down while he warmed up.

Mmmm, a warm rice bag on the bottom & a heat light on top

This morning, he was back to normal colors and is doing better. He ate some greens and some wax worms. I'll take him out in a bit and see how he does with me & my kids. 

This is his normal coloring

Once I have a good idea of how his health is and how social he is, I'll place him for adoption. 

Update on Spike: "there you see it, now you don't"

I took Spike in for a follow up this morning. He's back up to 500 grams (when he was super sick he dropped down under 400) and looks great! He was so happy that he left the vet a present on the floor! ;) 

Dr Folland said the beard looked good and, at this point, the tube was doing more harm than good. So he snipped it out and now Spike's a free man!

Twitch, rescue number 35

Dr Folland teases me that sickly/injured/dying/neglected beardies have a way of finding me wherever I am. :) One found me while I was vacationing in LA a couple weeks ago.

In his box on my lap on the long drive home

Twitch was, by far, the most aggressive baby I have ever had-- yes, even worse than Pickle. He would run across the tank to bite my fingers. We finally discovered why.

Even getting close with my camera made him try to attack

Twitch has SEVERE Metabolic Bone Disease. His bones are so soft that several of his ribs are broken simply from being picked up by a hand. No wonder he was terrified of being held! His bottom jaw is soft like butter and it appears that his beard bones are broken or bent too.

You can see the back side of his ribs poking out weird

He is in a new home where his momma feeds him baby food veggies because he can't chew well. He is getting massive doses of calcium and good food. It's too soon to say if his ribs will heal right, but at least I know the MBD will start to improve instead of being worse.

Another Tragic Example of Needless Neglect

When Dreams Come True

Ziggy went to his forever home today and the pictures of him with his new owner make me SOOOO very happy. This is why I do rescue-- to see beardies loved forever & forever.

I lent SweetPea out to a friend who unexpectedly & tragically lost her beardie a few weeks ago. Here's SweetPea sporting the latest in beardie fashion:

SweetPea is being loved & adored. That warms my heart-- even if I am missing her myself.

Merry Christmas! From our Zoo to Yours!

"What is this new thing?"

"It must be a fabulous new climbing toy just for me!"

"Wow! It sure goes up high! What's that thing at the top? "

"Why does she get the best spot on the new toy? She's been up
there ALL day! That's not fair! I want a turn!"

"Now *I've* got the best spot in the house!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!" 

POOP is a BIG, BIG, BIG deal in Rescue

And it is with GREAT excitement that I tell that you Steve/Rocky POOPED today!

Hooray!

That means he's taking in his food and fluids. That means he's not impacted. That means that his digestive systems did not shut down.

That means he is doing GOOD!!!

I remember the day that Nubs pooped after all his forcefeeding. I was 12 hours away from taking him to the vet to get an enema, but he did it on his own.

Eating is a big deal, but it's even better when it comes back out!! :)

Steve/Rocky has an iron will to live. He's going to make it barring anything crazy going on.

Picture of Rocky taken 12/19/13