Rescued baby panthers need your advice!

We rescued two baby panthers from a friend who stopped taking care of them a while ago. They never saw a dusted or gut loaded cricket, a uva/uvb light or the sun. They are about 5 inches long including tail and from what we can tell, have MBD. Panther #1 isn't nearly as bad as Panther #2 is. Panther #1 can move it's limbs and raise it's torso to climb a branch but has a hard time doing so. She drinks from plants and the waterfall with no problem. She is able to catch food, but it takes her 3-4 minutes to chew and swallow a cricket. We have been mixing calcium powder and water together and feeding her that slowly with a syringe. She has slight unusual bends in her front and rear leg, which according to pictures that I've seen, are broken bones. Now Panther #2 cannot lift herself up off of the ground and always has her mouth open and the tip of her tongue sticking out. She has a wound of some sort on her spine that is black in color, and another on the top thigh portion of her rear leg. She was being kept in a little bowl on a wet paper towel with 5 crickets running over her. I was thinking that maybe these wounds are from crickets since she is in no condition to fend them off. She will drink when we introduce water and the water/calcium mixture to her. We bought the Zoo-Med Repti Wound Healing Aid to put on the wounds, will this stuff help at all? The ingredients say it is just oils . . . ? We have Panther #1 housed in a 22 gallon reptarium with a live plant, fake plants and vines for her to move around the enclosure. We have an Exo-Terra Repti-Glo 5.0 and a 50 Watt basking light on during the day and nothing on a night because the temp doesn't drop below 78F. Panther #2 is in a reptarium of her own. We bring both panthers out into the sun for at least 3 hours each day to soak up some rays and get some fresh air. Any help in getting these two little girls back to tip-top shape would be greatly appreciated. I can also post some pictures of them if this would help at all. And thanks in advance!!

Okay, so maybe I'm a little impatient . . . I just was wondering if I am doing any of this right. How do I force feed Panther #2? She refuses to eat anything and she's sooo skinny! How much of the calcium/water mixture should I be giving them? I don't want to give them too much because I know that will cause problems too. I'm worried about them and I don't want them get any worse than they already are.

Can you get them to a vet? I dont know if the buldges means def broken bones or just sever MBD? Read the Chameleon Online Ezine. It is a great resource. Hope they get better.

One quesiton: Why did your friend just stop taking care of them? D

He "didn't have the time" to take care of them anymore. We are trying our best to find a vet that knows anything about reptiles at all. I don't know if we are doing any of this correctly but, I sure do hope so. What could it mean when a panther has two medium sized black spots on it's gums? We're having a hard time finding useful information on these sites because we don't know what we're supposed to be looking for. =[

Howdy,

Try these Florida listings:

http://www.herpvetconnection.com/florida.shtml

Good Luck,

Dave Weldon

What he said. I think thats your best bet to go to the vet. This is the best way to assist your pet

I'm not sure if this will help but an antibiotic that works well with panthers is baytril, it is commonly used so most vets have it on hand. I have given it by injection to my panthers but they were adults, it can be given by mouth. You are doing the right thing by giving them natural sunlight, they must have it to digest the calcium. I don't know that I would be giving them straight calcium though because you can overdose them on it. What I would do in this situation is gutload crickets with baby food, fresh vegetables including yellow squash, romain lettuce, carrots, and feed them as many as they will take on their own. It is important to keep them hydrated also by misting. It doesn't sound good by the description you gave. I know once they get to a certain point of either starvation or MBD it is very difficult to bring them back. With MBD, I've heard, you can not reverse what has already been done but they can live with the damage if it isn't too bad. Sometimes they just take a little extra care like hand feeding from that point on. I currently have a vet that I have been working with in Tampa who has supplied me with some good information. If you would like to contact me send me an e-mail and I will give you my phone # and vet info. Good luck and I hope the info helps.

Jerm

Rich and Lacey,

It sounds like these two have severe metabolic bone diesease. I think you guys are on the right track, but the more sicker of the two if not both should be seen by a vet because when the hypocalcemia is as severe as it sounds, calcium gluconate injections and many times vitamin D injections are required to get them back to normal levels.

It is also important to be extremely careful when handling them because their bones are probably extremely brittle and ones that are not already broken could do so very easily. It is probably advisable to take branches, trees and vines away for now and keep them confined to small cages. When they are weak they have a harder time climbing and if they fall they could injure themselves very severely in this state.

You are right on getting them under UVB lights and putting them outside in the sun. This will help them to get additional vitamin D so they can absorb the calcium. A calcium product that is recommended for this type of situation is called calcium glubionate trade named Neo-Calglucon syrup and is made by Sandoz Pharmaceuticals out of East Hanover, NJ. This product should be administered orally at 1ml per kg of body weight every 12 hours. This is only advisable if they are able to take things in orally and swallow, otherwise you risk accidentally getting into their lungs, which is also very bad. Again, it is really best to have a vet involved with this as well because blood calcium levels should be monitored to make sure that the correct levels are being reached.

If you can not force feed the sicker of the two, tube feeding may be necessary also to keep it from starving to death. This should only be attempted by a veterinarian because it is very easy to accidentally put the tube down the airway instead of the esophagus and obviously this would be very bad. Do you know how old these chams are? When they are young and supposed to be growing they need to eat about 8-12 insects per day (appropriately sized, of course).

Good job with the water, too. It would be really sad to have them die of dehydration after all the work to fix the other problems! It is important to realise, however, that if they have been neglected for a long time, they may already be in kidney failure. This happens when they are chronically dehydrated. Kidney failure is an irreversible and fatal problem, so this may be something you want to know sooner rather than later. This can be diagnosed by blood tests and some times radiographs as well.

Spinal injuries are also commonly seen with MBD. This may be something to look for too, because depending on the severity, these may not have a good outcome. This is usually diagnosed by neurologic exam, radiographs, and physical exam.

As far as antibiotics go, I would use caution. If there is infection, than obviously antibiotic treatment is warrented. Baytril is a great antibiotic, but is also an extremely powerful one and is usually reserved for bacterial infections that are resistant to some of the others and involve specific kinds of bacteria. I'm not sure if you can find them from sources other than a vet (this shouldn't happen because it is illegal, but you never know). It is very dangerous to administer antibiotics with out specific instructions because they are easily overdosed and not all antibiotics are safe in every species. Again, this is something that should be evaluated by a veterinarian and perscribed only if necessary.

As far as what to expect for prognosis, it probably depends on how bad and how long they have had problems. If they do survive, you should see them regaining strength (ability to hold themselves up and move around more easily and quickly) another sign that they are doing better is that they would start showing more interest in food and be eating on their own. Some of the bone changes that you see like the bending of the legs and jaw changes (if they have this too) probably won't return to normal, but the bones will become stronger and fractures will heal. It does take months for them to return to normal, so you have to be ready for a long commitment.

To find a good exotics vet, try this websitehttp://www.fvma.com/displaycommon.cf...barticlenbr=21 This is on the website for the Florida Veterinary Medical Association. You can search by zip code and type of vet you are looking for (exotics). I am sure there are many exotics vets in Florida because I know this state is a popular place to keep reptiles and other exotic animals.

Good luck to you!

-Julie