Right around Christmas of 2018, we received a call about a dragon in need. The people who contacted us said they had a 5 month old bearded dragon who hadn’t eaten in weeks. We went to get her right away.
When we got Letty, she was severely dehydrated and had mites. We quickly treated her for mites. We frequently bathed her in a povidone-iodine diluted bath, carefully removed the mites and disinfected and fumigated her enclosure. Then, we gave her fluids. However, she was so dehydrated that we needed to give her subcutaneous (Sub-Q) fluids daily for almost a week. She was eating a blended mix of greens, calcium, squash, and water, but she wasn’t getting re-hydrated enough. However, even with the sub-q fluids, she quickly lost everything we put in her. The food passed undigested, this is a common sign of parasites.
Finally, after about a week, we got a large enough bowel movement to test her stool for parasites. So, she had coccidia. Unfortunately, this parasite was severely malnourishing and dehydrating her. At once, we treated her for coccidia. Within days, we saw improvement. She started to retain fluids, and eat and drink on her own. She was basking and looking better daily.
Today, the difference is astounding. She is a beautiful orange, hypomelanistic dragon. She loves to bask all day and her favorite bug is dubia.
We believe that it is important to check for parasites regularly. Signs of parasites include: loose or watery stools, lethargy, lack of appetite.