Adeno Thoughts

Originally Posted by Valley Dragons

Wow. And how many dragons do you have? And you've been breeding them and raising them for how many years?

Jamie,
He's one of them "clients" from The Pogona Adenovirus Testing Scam um Society.

Todd Bird

He has been involved with bearded dragons for about 7 years now, & this will be his 2nd breeding season. He is concentrating on orange sandfire , German Giant morph and is currently working on a promising project with a normal morph that is showing some signs of light blue colors. This is his first season to officially test his dragons with the adeno society. He is due to begin testing in March of 2008, so please check back for progress reports. His new business website is here, however it is still under construction so please continue to check back for updates.
****UPDATE: Unfortunately, all 3 of his breeders did test positive for Adeno Virus. We are planning on doing some research projects soon as Todd ihas generously agreed to help gather data for us. Thank you Todd, we appreciate it. We hope for a better future for your breeding efforts.

www.tbdragonz.com
http://www.thepats.info/Breeder_Information.html

Originally Posted by JeffnDes

This I do believe is a problem especially using sand as your substrate. I know that when we were keeping dragons on sand there was increased temps. inside the cages, as well as ambient room temps. I do believe that sand does much more damage then good and not for impaction reasons at all. It retains the heat, similar to a pizza oven that uses bricks. But not only does it retain the heat, it also creates an extremely dry situation that can very easily turn into the problems that Tammy has posted in the quote above. But not only that it is very unsanitary IMO, if parasites are a problem which they will be with high temps. you can never rid the cage of them. But there's more, the super fine dust that gets airborn when the dragons move on it or when your sifting poop out, all gets breathed in by the animals AND you.

We found out early on that it easier to maintain cages and keep them clean looking, (only to the naked eye) using sand. I know sand is popular because it is esthetically nicer to look at. However I do not reccommend people to use sand for the reasons stated above. We now only use news paper. It is a pain to keep changing several times a day but we believe it is very sanitary and it's fairly simple but still rather time consuming. I would think the only thing better would be shelf liner that can be bleached daily. This was a PITA for us especially in the winter months so we have moved strictly to using paper. Aside from that we also wipe the cages clean several times daily using surgical scrub with a 2% Chlorhexedine solution. We dilute this to 1/10 (1 part chlorhexidine to 10 parts water) solution and have a spray bottle that is labled and we refill when needed. When the paper is removed so are the dragons, cages are sprayed on all sides and floor then wiped clean with paper towels. The old paper and towels are discarded. New paper is installed along with the dragons. We also use whole eggcrate pieces under the basking spots. The dragons like laying on this and these are also disposable.

All in all, this is much more work then sand, it is also more expensive (news papers, masking tape, eggcrats, and cleaning solution), but IME, it is a far better solution to sand. Just some random thoughts, but maybe it can be helfull. Also for us like Tammy mentioned, we really need to update our own caresheet as well. We'll get to work on that this weekend

LOL. This is a perfect example of how different things work for differrent people in different situations. I STARTED raising all my dragons on newspapers, and eventually ceramic tile. It was FILTHY and DISGUSTING. I spent hours a day soaking and scrubbing poop-covered dragons (they liked to smear poop everywhere - quite the artists they were), cages, glass, rocks, food bowls....ugh. It was not healthy, and in no way sanitary. Then I switched to sand. As long as you stay on top of things, it is very easy to keep clean. Just make sure it is deep enough to absorb all the liquids when they poop (so no puddling occurs on the floor of the cage) and scoop out after they poop. MUCH better. Do a full change every month, and you're good to go. And of course, some brands of sand are going to kick up more dust than others...so you have to be caerful what you buy.

Jamie

Originally Posted by Valley Dragons

LOL. This is a perfect example of how different things work for differrent people in different situations. I STARTED raising all my dragons on newspapers, and eventually ceramic tile. It was FILTHY and DISGUSTING. I spent hours a day soaking and scrubbing poop-covered dragons (they liked to smear poop everywhere - quite the artists they were), cages, glass, rocks, food bowls....ugh. It was not healthy, and in no way sanitary. Then I switched to sand. As long as you stay on top of things, it is very easy to keep clean. Just make sure it is deep enough to absorb all the liquids when they poop (so no puddling occurs on the floor of the cage) and scoop out after they poop. MUCH better. Do a full change every month, and you're good to go. And of course, some brands of sand are going to kick up more dust than others...so you have to be caerful what you buy.

Jamie

That is exactly right! What works for us may not work for others and vice versa. See in the winter we have forced hot air and that is super good at drying things out, including our sinuses. Before I found out about using humidifyers I know some of our dragons were dehydrating and had shed problems. IMO, the sand did not help the situation. The paper can be a pain and it is time consuming but it's what works for us.

Originally Posted by hockeyballz30

It's always about money, its obvious that breeders are threatened by the information given. Whether it is a mix of opinion and ethics and facts, it is still there and it does exist. It is also obvious by the previous posts of some breeders that they do not really care if the dragons have adeno, they want to make money and money alone. Adeno does affect dragons differently, it is still very new to all of us.

Not threatend in any way, shape, or form. There is no reason at all to feel threatend. Also, money has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Did you read the thread? Can you please show me how adeno effects dragons differently?

Originally Posted by hockeyballz30

opinions are like assholes, everyone has one

This was the most intelligent thing you said in your entire rant. Thanks for all the info you have provided here today. It has been a pleasure reading this.

I would love to see all of your caresheets. There is so much information you speak of that I have never heard before. Humidifiers for one. Turning some lights off after 1pm or so. All I know is that I see I have a whole lot more to learn and am glad I came over. I admire each of you breeders who have such an esteem and respect for bearded dragons. It seems that things are different on every forum, and there are some very good new ideas here. I just wanted you to know this. Respectfully to you all, Beth

Tammy, thanks for the advice. I appreciate you posting it. I started my dragons on sand. Then after a lot of research and some flaming posts about using sand, keeping the dragons together, Etouffee dying, etc...I bought 40 gallon breeder tanks and separated them. I was using 10.0 Zoo Med bulbs and switched to Powersun MVB, then went with ReptileUV MBD with bright white additional spot lights. I currently have them on ceramic tile but I'm going to move to newspaper or papertowels this weekend. The tiles get nasty in between because they aren't grouted.

Temps range from the high 70's in the cave, 80s in the larger portion of the cage and 90 on one basking site to 103-105 on the basking site under the MVB. I usually turn lights on around 7:00 am, then I turn off the bright white light when I come home at lunch. In the evening I turn on the bright white light and turn off the MVB. Lights out completely when it gets dark outside. In the winter that can be around 6:00 pm and in the summer it can be as late as 9:00 pm.

I live in East Texas and the weather this winter and spring has really been messed up here...it's been hot one day and in the 40s the next for the last couple of months. Very wierd weather and lots of storms lately. The ambient temp in the reptile room is usually 75-78 degrees in the spring and early summer. It's a few degrees higher in the hotter parts of the summer, July, August, and into September. The highs here can run over 100 for several days or weeks in a row. The humidity is also high here...usually at least 80% outside. The dragons get natural daylight for photoperiods also..there is a big window in their room but they are on the same wall as the window so the light doesn't come through and shine directly on the cages.

When I had them together as juveniles, we thought there were two females and one male, that is what was listed on their picture when I bought them. Boo had all appearances of being male but turns out he was a she. So...I had three females together. There was a 160 MVB in my big enclosure with sand, petrified wood for caves and a big driftwood root (when through many suggested methods of sanatation prior to putting them in with it.) They loved it and were very active and moved around all the time and seem much happier than they did after I separated them. They had a lot of vertical space to climb in the big enclosure, it's equal to 175 gallons and is a corner unit, built as a fine piece of furniture by a cabinet maker. It's about 4 1/2 feet vertically and about 36 inches on all sides in a triangle shape to fit in corner. The top is screen and it has tempered glass on the door and the front sides. The rest of it is wood with the interior painted with epoxy sealant to keep the humidity from soaking into the wood. My Mountain Horned Dragon breeding colony lives in this display enclosure now.

I do have yellowish urates sometimes on both of the remaining dragons now. I will check with the vet and see what he needs to get the testing for the bacteria.

They eat greens (turnip, mustard, collard) with sweet potatoes, sprouts, different squashes, green beans, snow peas. I usually get something different each week at the grocery store and rotate it around. They have both lost interest in their salads. I've tried bits of fruit, grapes, apples, pears....but they will usually eat a bit and then they don't want anymore. I keep fresh water in their enclosure in a big reptile rock bowl they can soak in if they want. I don't mist anymore because they act like they hate it. I do soak them a couple of times a week in lukewarm water and I used to have a poo everytime I did that. I also feed superworms, crickets, ocassional mealworms as treats. I feed hornworms and silkworms and they seem to like those but the hornworm guy doesn't want to ship when it's hot and I usually want tiny babies for my Mountain Horned Dragons hatchlings so that causes problems because of the shipping time, they are too big for the babies when they get here so I usually grow them until they are really large and give them to the beardies.

I supplement feeders with Sticky Tongue Farms calcium with D3, MWFS and Herptivite T Th. I gutload crickets and keep the worms in Ronnie Buck's mealworm bedding. I feed stems to all the feeders for the liquid. I also give the crickets some of the salads. It have the Salad Topper from Ronnie Buck that I have tried on the salads for the dragons but they don't seem to care for it.

The more I think about the bacterial issue, I think that might be part of what is going on with them....relating it to how bacterial infections manifest in humans, which is the type of knowledge that I have from being in the medical field for the last 25 years. I'm definately going to check that out.

Truly guys, the information in this thread relating to husbandry issues has been the most helpful that I've seen in all the posts that I've read for the last 3 years. I appreciate it very much.

Well, the sand is so hard to clean..as in fecal matter stays behind and gets spread with that sand cleaner scoop, but many people do like it. We use newspaper for adults and the hatchlings are on bran cereal. Lots of people use shelf liner and that should be very easy to clean.

Your temps sound good,and you are sure you can achieve these stable temps in that big huge cage? I am not sure what would happen if I turned off my bright lights in the middle of the day and then switched them back on in the evening and then switched them back off when the sun went down (is this bright light your heat light maybe?)..if I understood this correctly. We turn the heat bulbs off in the middle of the day but the cage stays brightly lit from wake up to bed time. I can't tell by your post if you have been giving them a calendar habitat or a constant year habitat, but if you have been giving them a constant habitat you might want to experiment and simulate as best as you can..simulation can be as minor as one hour difference photo period and 5F up or down depending on the season you are making for them. Didn't mention the humidity level in the dragon room or in the actual cage. The cage is really tall, sounds lovely..do you have a temp gun you can shoot the top middle and bottom of each section of cage? Sounds like this cage would be very hard to stabilize a good solid temp..is this true?

yellowish urates do not always mean bacteria infection, if it has a bit of shiny or glossy looking particles and is hard..a bit like a dry yolk..this can be a mineral problem that a blood panel can detect easily

Do you notice them defecating in the water bowl? Mine would and if they did and then drank from it...oh gosh, that would cause some terrible problems. If you have noticed them pooing in the bowl and you have always let them have a water bowl, could this be the problem maybe? Ingesting waste will cause disease and could cause death. I don't mist them or use water bowls ever, we use an eyedropper and water each dragon individually and the adults go into shallow soaking tubs one at a time, you have to scrub in between.

I think you say you are feeding the insects the minerall with d3 right? I can't tell if you mean dusting the insects. If you have a MVB and I dont know information on these because we dont use them..could you be giving too much D3? D3 that doesn't come from sunlight is usually taken from cows..so it has been used by a mammal and then put into our supplements. Not sure about sticky toungue but you could check on that. D3 is quite toxic and all animals handle it differently..what is not enough for one is too much for another..just like supplements for people. ....sheesh don't we go through flaming hoops for them? This problem could be one of a hundred things and I wish I had an answer for you.

Well, hopefully all will turn out well with your other dragons and you can do investigative work....send out for some tests, get info back. I wish you luck. Sounds like you care an awful lot for your dragons and they are lucky to have you.

Call your breeder and go over everything with them if you haven't, lots of times the breeder will be able to help you...if the parents and all the siblings and aunts uncles are all doing well then something is up.

Another note: no toxins of any kind? Do all Texans have horses (joke) if you have horses or cows you can't have fly spray on your hands and touch those dragons, not even citronella oil on your hands..flea shampooing the dog and touching dragons? fertilizer? oven cleaner?


Tammy

LOL Tammy,
We have a horse but it lives at the farm...25 miles from the house where the BDs are...and I pretty much always wash my hands before between and after handling any of the reptiles - that's why they are so red and chapped all the time!

The BDs aren't in the big enclosure anymore. The Mountained Horned Dragons are in there with plants and vines and a running pond...they stay pretty much about midway up the enclosure...that one has a temp gradient appropriate to the MHDs....a lot cooler than the BDs enclosures. The BDs are in 40 gallon breeder tanks.

I use the bright white light for additional heat. It's usually warmer in the house by lunch so I turn them off until evening. Normally the lights on and the additional heat off happens about the same time but I leave all the lights on all day in the winter because it's cooler in the house I only turn the heat lights off in the spring and summer and part of the fall, the big MBV lamps also produce heat. The humidity in the reptile room is about 50% ambient. I haven't measure it in the BD tanks but I'll do that when I redo them this weekend.

I'll cut back on the D3, that's been recommended by a friend in an email also. I also put them outside on Saturday in a tub but the last time I did that the Red Tailed Hawk was giving them the eyeball....there's a couple of sets of Hawks around the neighborhood. The squirrel population has decreased around here in the last year or so...

I gutload feeders and supplement with dust so maybe I should do one or the other.

I do have water bowls avaialbe all the time but they really don't poo in the water. Most of the time I get the poos in the soaks. I do scrub down the soaking tub with Novalsan between each dragon.

I do appreciate all the input, it's been very helpful and interesting. Thanks everyone!