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Hey Josh-
I did email Dr. Wentz regarding this thread. I have never actually gotten a reply via email from him. He will even admit that he is really busy and does not check email often. All of our conversations have been over the phone. I am hoping he will be able to come and post.
Vicki-
I am about positive there have not been any studies that you are speaking of. Dr. Jacobson said you would have to start with about 30 dragons and test every 3 days for viral cells to truly find out if the shedding is constant or intermittent. I do know that Dr. Wentz had a positive male that died at age 6 and was still shedding viral cells. I also know that Clyde at age two was shedding very few viral cells, but it was enough to infect almost every baby that hatched this season. I agree that there needs to be scientific studies done with this virus. But I also think we should be able to look at others' experiences and see how this virus impacts other dragons when exposed. It is not a definite science, but I do believe it is relevant.
My orange line, Herbie and Tiger Lily had 3 healthy large clutches last season. I did not have a single problem. The dragons that I sold early this season from that same line were fine. They were tested and no virus was found. But, the ones I held onto because I started having problems with the yellow line all showed viral cells to one degree or another. I had ones I was going to hold back tested and they were positive. I am fairly sure between handling them, soaking them and taking pictures that I cross contaminated the babies.
When I had the dragons tested via fecal EM locally they did not show any viral cells. It took them two weeks to test everything and they did not use a fixative to keep the cells from becoming undetectable. When I retested, freezing the samples, using the fixative, all adults were clear but Clyde and all the babies but one were positive. I tested the baby that was clear a month and a half later (in case she had been exposed and not showing up yet) and she was still clear. So, I have one baby from this season from Clyde and Maggie and none from Herbie and Tiger Lily.
Clyde did not show any signs of being sick, he weighed 560 grams and was 22 inches long. I had no reason to believe anything was wrong. I can't tell you whether they are always shedding the virus. But I do know that under good husbandry conditions that Clyde was shedding low levels at two years of age. His low levels indirectly infected all of my babies. By the third clutch I lost 12 out of 24 babies in a few days period. At that point I chose to freeze the remaining eggs fathered by Clyde.
Of the orange babies that survived, over half were tiny. They were 8 weeks old and were the size of 2 week olds. There were others that were growing fine, but like Clyde did, I was concerned they would infect other dragons if sold. I was able to place some dragons in homes that I knew would not be bred or exposed to other dragons. I also sent Clyde and many babies to Dr. Wentz.
On a different note, Dr. Jacobson and Lou Ann at the Univ of IL lab are talking about doing a collaborative study with the testing methods. I am really excited about that and am hoping it will shed some light on the differences and similarities with PCR based and fecal EM testing for the virus.
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