I want to share a story about my male bearded dragon, and how I almost lost him recently. Hopefully forewarned is forearmed!

This male 'spikey' belongs to my 11 yo daughter, hes always been a great eater and it was never a problem till last thursday morning.
I feed our beardys woodies (roaches) in a fluon (teflon) painted chinese container rather than just toss them in the enclosure, we all know how they vanish into crevices in secs
before the beardys can get em.

Anyway normally the male and female feed from container together no stress, and pretty much both get a fair share. Lately though 'spikey' has taken to over dominating the girl and really scarfing (swallowing without chewing more than one at a time) roaches.

Wednesday afternoon he had scarfed the bulk of the roaches and in doing so had peirced the inside of his throat while forcing them down (probly an exoskeleton). Subsequently
he bled into his stomach overnight and on tuesday morning I woke up to a horror scene!

A pile of woodies had been regurtitated and sat in a pool of blood, more blood covered the floor and walls and ran down the glass doors. It looked like a murder scene!
A great deal Of blood actually.

There was no vet (herp specialist are few and far between here) anywhere near that I could get to Immediatly and I had only just got home from Hospital after another heart attack. So we cleaned him up, isolated him, kept him warm and syringed water into him,
to stave off dehydration/kidney-liver damage.

I couldnt find any injury but inside his throat was red, The blood was fresh and I feared Internal Bleeding.  Later In the day the whole thing was reapeated and his skin was now blue, I assume from losing so much blood/ low oxygen. He was lethargic and his eyes were closing, I thought he was a Goner.

This time I took a closer look inside his throat with a candling torch, He was weak so offered little resistance. I found the wound still bleeding, just beyond the mouth
in the soft tissue of the 'beard'.  I used a cotton tip ear bud to apply pressure to
the wound for around 10 mins till the bleeding stopped, there was little else I could do
and when I was finished, he was limp in my hand.

I put him back in the hospital tank in a warm spot and wished him well. I witheld water for several more hours so as to avoid loosening any clot that may form over the wound sealing it.
After a few hours he had not thrown up blood again, continued syringing small amounts, around 1 cc of water directly down his throat every hour on the hour. I continued this through out the night and by dawn he was looking a little better and had defecated,
no blood apparent and no swelling of the stomach (no internal bleeding/bleeding had stopped).

His color and energy slowly returned to normal and he has started eating soft dog food over the last few days.
Happily he is now his normal self once more.
I am now forced to separate and hand feed him roaches to avoid the problem again.

I conclude that despite having always been housed together, this was caused by some
change in the normal order of dominance and the pair began competing strongly for food they had always shared. Im not sure why but we learn soething new everyday, ever our simpleast herps can still surprise us!

Anyway, now you know such things can sometimes occure, even when you think you have your animals well sussed out!
Cheers.

Tags: Bearded Dragons

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Just took a quiz, see
Here, about a record Beardy Clutch (68 eggs in one clutch!!!)

Absolutely Blown away, must've been a Godzilla sized beardy!
Can anyone please point me to where this info came from please?
I just have to know more/see pics if any!

WOW!

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I feel so Blonde, I took This Quiz, just Guessed A few Answers, Forgot Boas Give live birth!

"D'oh!!!!!" Now Everyone Will think
"What an Idiot!" 



"Sneaky trick Questions!"

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