but every time I do an update here, Joey takes a turn for the worse.
This time; no exception.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe this is bad karma or whatever, just a coincidence that I have noticed but chosen to ignore.
As soon as I noticed signs of going downhill (I saw eyes starting to turn red, energy going down, and a lot of shallow breathing) I took him to the exotic vet that we see.
No URI signs. Joey got his Calcium and D3 shot (the vet is seriously confusing me as to what shots Joey has received in the past!)--this time no noticeable improvement, and we're going steady downhill.
Poor energy, poor appetite, eyes looking puffier and puffier.
I called and talked to my "regular" vet, whom I know very well (hubby thinks we alone have paid for this guy's pool
). He doesn't specialize in exotics, but I know without a doubt that he sincerely cares, and instead of thinking he already knows all that is to be known (that I fear sometimes the exotic vet does) he actually is willing to put in time to study and get in touch with the resources that are available to him.
He did so this time as well. The answer he got was, that in 90+% of cases of sick reptiles, where the cause is seemingly unknown and everything else has been ruled out, the cause is in husbandry.
As I said in my last update, one of my Meraukes was starting to have some toe-issues similar to Joey's. I still think it was a case of shed-constriction (I was out of the country for most of the summer and the babies shed a couple of times while I was gone), but you can imagine with all the trouble Joey has been through, I tend to be overly vigilant. And a bit paranoid.
I have listed all of our practices and habits before, but wish to do it again, so that some of you who have done this for so much longer than I could perhaps catch something that I could change. BEFORE someone else starts to get sick.
Let's assume the problems lie in husbandry.
I will list the "normal" tanks and BTS first, and they are the same as I was doing with Joey before he got sick.
Tank: 36 x 18 until recently when the Merauke babies got their Showcase front-open "coffins" that are 60 x 24.
Substrate: Repti Bark.
Hides: Basket and log, will put in two raised tiles, one on either side in both tanks when glue has cured.
Water: Big shallow glass bowl for water, use only distilled water as the town we live in adds fluoride in the drinking-water.
Temps: Have an under-tank heating pad, a UVB lamp and a ceramic heat lamp, all on the same side, and full-spectrum fluorescents that run the length of the tank. Measuring with a temp-gun: 82-85 on the cool side with the water bowl, progressively warmer up to 96-98 on warm side with 105-107 on basking spot.
The heat pad under tank stays on 24/7, lights are on 12 hrs in summer, about 9 hrs in winter.
Food: I buy all the vegetables and greens listed as good on the food chart on the Caresheet, get ground beef and ground turkey that I boil, mix all together, add moist dog food, usually Blue Buffalo with just three ingredients or Wellness 95% meat.
I add multi vitamin and calcium powder.
This makes a huge batch, that I then press into ice cube trays and freeze, wrap frozen food individually and thaw one portion for each skink 2-3 times a week.
Just to rule it out as a cause, I have served only fresh food for a long period of to rule out something from the freezing. As expected, there was no change.
JOEY
When he got sick and was rubbing his eyes to where he had rubbed chunks of eyelids off, I put him in a small tank so he couldn't lie on the cool side--which he always would in the big tank, and removed everything except a smooth glass bowl for water.
I bought a couple of woven "rugs" to put on the bottom of the tank, and a ton of white towels and washcloths for "substrate". I would wash them all with detergent and bleach and then boil them for a minimum of 10 min to remove any residual detergent, and kill any possible residual germs.
He is offered the same food as the other two. When he goes through longer periods of time (a couple of weeks usually) of not eating, I offer unsweetened applesauce, because I know I can usually entice him to at least lick at it a few times.
Under-tank heating pad, UVB light and ceramic heat lamp. 80 degrees on cool side, 100 on warm. Under-tank pad is on 24/7, and when he is worse I will leave the ceramic on at night to keep temps up.
I give Joey a bath at least once a week when he is sick. If he eats at all he then doesn't move enough to stimulate a bowel movement, so the warm water helps with that. He also doesn't drink as far as I can tell, so when he gets in the tub he usually drinks for quite a while.
What else?
Humidity: usually right around 30% in all three tanks. Maybe because we have a humidifier hooked up to the furnace because of our wood floors. But I try to spray Joey a couple times a week anyway, he just feels so "dry" and with him not drinking... The Meraukes I generally only spray when I notice a shed coming on.
Sorry this is so long, and I also apologize for having to do this over and over again. But I do know many of you out there care, and I hope you don't mind me trying to pick your brains yet again.
I know many want to help, and I hope YOU know how much it is appreciated.
Thank you.
I am really, really hoping that one of those treatments is the one that magically cures all of this.
