Sunshinedragons

[ashbb24]

CheriS,

You mentioned that when it comes to studies, "what there is shows once positive, always positive." I agree and never said it any other way. I said a positive dragon could end up never showing the effects of having Adeno - just as some people with Herpes never show those effects either.

Regardless, if there are no control groups in a study, there is no credible study. If two credible studies get the same answer, the answer is still not significant. Research studies are complicated and take years to come up with a significant answer.

I mean to say that while I completely understand the fear of having a potentially unhealthy dragon, it is fair to say that an adeno-positive dragon could actually be just as healthy as a negative one. Having Adeno doesn't necessarily mean having its effects. And no matter why the false-negative, it will still always exist.

 

[Rebel Dragons]

A major question I have is, how can a breeder who has had tested positive for the adeno virus claim to have a virus free facility in just a few short months??? There is so little known about this particular virus. Are there periods of dormancy??? Can the virus live outside the host for a long period of time??? Possibly years??? Are there diffrent strains of it??? Can an animal be infected with the virus but not be an active carrier??? Will false negatives show up because the animal is not actively shedding the virus??? Are false positives likely to appear due to the amount of testing being done??? How reliable and accurate are the tests??? I could go on and on...........

Unfortunately the answers to those questions just aren't known. Without those answers, I just can't accept that a breeder can claim being a negative free establishment after just a few months. I would have to see numerous test results (all negative) collected over a large period of time (at least a year) to accept a claim like that. That's just how I feel about all this. I would rather not buy, sell or breed dragons until I find out the answers to those questions. I don't depend on my dragons to make me money. To cancel any plans for breeding until this virus is better understood is a small price to pay in my opinion.

 

[dandddragons]

I myself, have many questions, most which have been asked by others. I would like to know, if it's possible, to trace back how far this virus has been documented in the particular line in question - Starburst from Sunshine/ Dragons By Nature. I purchased 4 baby's from another breeder to increase the color and diversity of our colony- they are now almost 6months old and show no signs of illness but there is a nagging fact- Great- Grandma IS Starburst!!!!! I have read and re-read this thread and done other searches and can not come up with any new or viable infomation i regards to this. Am I worried,of course I am, we are hobby breeders and it took along time to save for these dragons and alot of money was spent trying to get the best we could. We don't have the finances to get them tested to see if they would be positive, so our only solution would be to humanely put them down. I just do not wish to do that if there is any doubt that it may have just recently surfaced/ became prevalent in this line.
I am fully aware that this a virus and that it is deadly to dragons, but is it possible that it could weaken when it passes down through generations - i.e. a resistance of some sort ( immunity ) built up? The dragons we own in this bloodline are quarantined and separated ( separated for the last three months- they were 8 weeks old when we got them ) and this is turning out to be a nightmare for us as well as for others I'm sure. They are beautiful dragons and we were extremely excited about having one or two breeders from this line and this has to happen. Sorry, got off track a bit, just upset that we may have wasted $500.00! Is it possible that it is more prevalent in dragons coming directly from Sunshine than through other breeders who have Sunshine stock in their colonies? How much at risk are our other dragons with them even being in the same location as them?
Everyone has questions and yet there are no definitive answers to most! I guess we'll have to wait it out and hope something comes up in the next year ( we don't breed before 18 months) to give us the right answers. We feel saddened by the effect this is having on everyone not just us and are hoping for the best outcome for all.
Wendy and Cheri - we would like to thank you for all you are doing to attempt to find answers to all these questions. THANK YOU!!!!!!!
Bruce from Sunshine- I/ we are not solely picking you out nor are we attempting to create more problems for you. If you find definitive proof that there is no problems I/ we would be grateful. Til then the bandwagons coming up the street and I would like to know if I have get this old body up on it because as I see it all fingers are pointing in your direction.

_______________________
Doug Martin DandD Dragons

 

[Brenda777]

Douglas the test only costs around $25. Maybe you can just test one at a time. I talked to the person that does the testing and she will be on vacation till Nov. 20th. There is a link you can click on. Someone here can tell you where it is I don't remember. I think its on the Adenovirus Alert thread. Hope this helps.

 

[Bill_Leverton]

Sorry were done as of the previous post. Forget it. Were not going to take that garbage, or be subjected to it.

We have taken enough of the insults,false and innacurate accusations and now that. Forget it.

Were not going to repond to anyone on this post after that. No way are going to put up with this garbage.

Bruce

If you did the right thing you wouldn't have too... Just food for the mind.

 

[Iguanalady]

I have 2 of Sunshine's Dragons, I am taking them both in to be tested on Friday. Once I get the results, I will post them here. Standby!

 

[CheriS]

Doug,

This is one post I can answer positive for you

is it possible that it could weaken when it passes down through generations - i.e. a resistance of some sort ( immunity ) built up?

I hate to "paraphase" an expert, after what has been done to him and his staff personally over this mess, but this is one questuon that Dr Jacobson and I did discuss in detail, not only about adenovirus, but also IBD in snakes. Answer to that question is yes, it is very possible. Dr Jacobson warned not have a knee jerk reaction to put down any collection where testing was positive, but there was no indicators of any illness or deaths. That someone could very well have a collection that has established itself with an immunity. This has not been seen in any bearded drgaon colonies yet or reported, (could still be possible) but he felt it might have happened in snakes with IBD.... it is not impossible in either. If someone does have a colony like that, to not put down the aniimals but to get them into research facilities that will study them.

I would like to know, if it's possible, to trace back how far this virus has been documented in the particular line in question -

1997, from Florida, prior to that Germany.

Just to clarify, this did not originate with Bruce, nor are we saying his colonly has been host to this through out it for years. OR that DBN (who absolutely did not know they ever had it) host it through out their colony. They were just as much as victim as Wendy, Suzanne and Andy who where hit so hard with it. All of their carriers, go back to the same breeder from 1997. The problem with Bruce is that he was knowingly selling adenovirus positive dragons, and not letting buyers know and using them to pay off "reptile debts" to other breeders. Just think about the implications of what that *could* do.

 

[Valley Dragons]

I posted a list of question in the bearded dragon forum. I would love to have these questiuons answered, and I'm sure that many other people would as well. CheriS replied to my post and told me that most of these questions can be answered. I wanted to repost here so that she can answer for us all to see.


1. Just how prevelant is this virus in the U.S?
2. What is the actual lethality of the virus?
3. Are there different strains with varying degree of lethality?
4. Exactly what ARE the symptoms to look out for?
5. By what means is the virus passed?
6. How long is the virus shed?
7. Does the virus lay dormant until the animal becomes ill, stressed, infested with parasites, at which point the virus is activated? Is is possible for the virus to spread during a "dormant" period, if in fact, one exists?
8. Is simple husbandry practices, e.g., cleaning with bleach, enough to kill the virus in the environment? If the virus is airborne, what control measures do we use?
9. Could a bearded dragon be treated with anti-virals to suppress illness and shedding of the virus? Could an animal being treated with anti-virals be bred and produce healthy, virus-free offspring?
10. Suppose we selectively bred animals who carry the virus but suffer no ill-effects. Would we eventually have a group of animals virtually resistant to the virus?

Jamie

 

[dvandriesen]

I'd like to say that i am actually dissapointed with my purchase from sunshine dragons. I bought my dragon about 2 months ago at the valley forge reptile show. He was supposed to be a hold back dragon and a bad purchase i think. Since i got him has only grown a little bit nothing like one of the dragons my friend purchased from another breeder. Side by side these dragons are like a 2:1. I got my dragon and took him into the vet about 2 weeks after i got him to get him tested for parasites. He had coccidia and pinworms and ever since i have been trying to treat the coccidia. At first it didnt slow him down eating wise but now we have come to a big slow down only eating liek once a day if that. The coccidia levels went up from the last time i took him to the vet i just recently purchased a steam cleaner to help with this issue because i dont feel like putting the dragon through more stress with treating him with albon. I have sent emails to sunshine dragons and each time the emails seem to get beat around the bush i will get huge long forwarded emails stating all sorts of the things. I just recently got a email stating they can help me out on this ordeal. I am getting very discouraged lately and am willing to just give the dragon back to sunshine and not have my money refunded just so i can get a dragon that is doing all the healthy things. I just thought i would give my input on the ordeal with my dealings with sunshine dragons. The dragon i have is very beautiful and defiantly is a stunner but with the problems i have had recently it doenst equal out. DREW

 

[dvandriesen]

One more thing before i get any question on keeping of this dragon. This dragon have been in 2 cages. Each cage has had proper tempatures and he is able to get within 6inchs of a reptisun10.0. In the second cage he can get within 6inches of 2 reptisun10.0s. He is eating lobster roaches and greens when he wants to and pellets. I keep everything as clean as possible so i feel the husbandry of this dragon is more then enough and it cant be from that issue like stated in a few emails i got about why the dragon is acting the way it is. DREW

 

[whiskersmom]

CheriS,

You mentioned that when it comes to studies, "what there is shows once positive, always positive." I agree and never said it any other way. I said a positive dragon could end up never showing the effects of having Adeno - just as some people with Herpes never show those effects either.

Regardless, if there are no control groups in a study, there is no credible study. If two credible studies get the same answer, the answer is still not significant. Research studies are complicated and take years to come up with a significant answer.

I mean to say that while I completely understand the fear of having a potentially unhealthy dragon, it is fair to say that an adeno-positive dragon could actually be just as healthy as a negative one. Having Adeno doesn't necessarily mean having its effects. And no matter why the false-negative, it will still always exist.

While a positive dragon may be healthy, a baby that was a product from this positive dragon, may not be.
Wendy had babies that died with being positive and Bruce had adults that died before their time, although he won't say what they died from. There's no way of telling which ones will be healthy and I think that it is extremely irresponsible to take that chance.
You said so yourself that it could take years to definitively find all the answers surrounding this virus and in the mean time we could wipe out the U.S. population. Where is the responsible breeding in that?

 

[dvandriesen]

After getting in contact with Bruce we are working something out and he is going to be having the dragon tested. On tuesday im going to meet up with him and were going to work something out from there so that helps alot. Both the parents of my dragons Blaze and Storm he said tested negative to aden. Im happy im having this situation taken care of. Drew

 

[CheriS]

Best to you and this dragon Drew, I know you have been dealing with his issues as best you can for several weeks and doing all you can to make sure things were perfect. I am glad to see you are finally getting this taken care of by the person he came from.

 

[Valley Dragons]

I posted a list of question in the bearded dragon forum. I would love to have these questiuons answered, and I'm sure that many other people would as well. CheriS replied to my post and told me that most of these questions can be answered. I wanted to repost here so that she can answer for us all to see.


1. Just how prevelant is this virus in the U.S?
2. What is the actual lethality of the virus?
3. Are there different strains with varying degree of lethality?
4. Exactly what ARE the symptoms to look out for?
5. By what means is the virus passed?
6. How long is the virus shed?
7. Does the virus lay dormant until the animal becomes ill, stressed, infested with parasites, at which point the virus is activated? Is is possible for the virus to spread during a "dormant" period, if in fact, one exists?
8. Is simple husbandry practices, e.g., cleaning with bleach, enough to kill the virus in the environment? If the virus is airborne, what control measures do we use?
9. Could a bearded dragon be treated with anti-virals to suppress illness and shedding of the virus? Could an animal being treated with anti-virals be bred and produce healthy, virus-free offspring?
10. Suppose we selectively bred animals who carry the virus but suffer no ill-effects. Would we eventually have a group of animals virtually resistant to the virus?

Jamie

Well, folks, don't expect to get answers about this virus from CheriS. She told me that most of these questions could be answered. I asked her to answer them. This is the response I got from her:

"Yes, hundreds of animals tested over the past 4 years, by breeders/owners that have pooled together their experiences, data, history, info on location the carriers came from, possibility of infection and cross infection routes, necropsy reports and pathology. Even identifying another virus that seems to appear in BD populations that was not known before and is benign. A bacteria that was never seen before and highly resistant that appears to be a lot like adenovirus in the symptoms it causes. That is what was advised by the experts like Jacobson, Wentz and Pare in the absence of researcher's controlled studies. There was no funding for that, so no one was doing any or wanted to. When there is, researchers often need several years of data collecting, before they qualify to apply for the grants. Also, assurance to the grant committees that they can secure the stock and it is much easier to get approval with already known infected stock, rather that a purposely infecting of healthy animals. Their advice was for "the community to help themselves", and in turn may help researches, that has already been done with YFD. Nut, hey do no understand that for some, there is no helping! We all could have just sat around moaning about others lack of action, but we decided to try and do something constructive and supportive. You have something better you have accomplished to share?"

Wow - that really clears everything up. Thanks for that great answer CheriS!

Jamie

 

[CheriS]

OOPS, ValleyDragons, you forgot a post you have in between those above, that quote is not to any of those answers, it is to another you asked "Oh, really? How do you know? Because there have been soooo many tests done on this..... "

and you know what leaving out things, twisting someones words, partial responses, trying to deceive others into thinking something is answering somethig else can lead too, don't you?

Anyone that wants to read what he is leaving out on accident??: http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89666&page=3&pp=5

It's self explanatory what his agenda is, sorry all, at the attempt to hijack this thread for personal reason.

 

[Valley Dragons]

CheriS, I am not twisting your words, or attempting to decieve anyone. If anyone has a personal agenda, it is you! Feel free to posts every communication we have had - I have NOTHING TO HIDE! I also don't consider asking questions about this virus to be "hijacking" a thread. Oh, and by the way - I am a woman, lol.

Jamie

 

[Neverland Dragons]

The decision on whether or not to humanely put down babies that test positive for adeno virus is a personal one. When I decided to start breeding, I put emphasis on health, size and color. Clyde, my male that was the carrier APPEARED healthy. He was 560 grams and 22 inches. I started to have babies die from the second yellow clutch at around 2 weeks of age. The orange babies did not show symptoms until 6 weeks, so I am guessing they were exposed after the yellow babies hatched. Here are two pictures of the baby I submitted for a necropsy the day before it died:

The necropsy shows the diagnosis as adenovirus in bearded dragons. I had to deal with this with about 40 babies. I have many that did not die, but were the size of 2 week olds at 8 weeks. I then had some that were positive that you would never know there was anything wrong. This happened because I had an unrelated male that was a carrier of the virus.

My situation does show that having a dragon that is a carrier can be detrimental to a colony. I do not understand what is so hard to understand that babies that test positive for the virus should not be sold. I could not sell the babies knowing that what happened to me could happen to someone else. I also feel that I have a responsibility as a breeder to do everything in my power to not contribute to the spread of this virus. I did place a few in homes as a single pet only dragon. I had to find someone that I trusted that would not expose these dragons to others and/or would not give them to someone else. Once these dragons leave my hands it would be out of my control and I could not take that chance. I think that referring to humanely euthanizing positive babies as a slaughter was way out of line. It is not a decision I made lightly. I tried to find university vet programs that would take them for adenovirus studies and they all said that there was not any funding for it.

In the big picture, I believe that the choice I made was the right one. I had to look at this beyond my little world and look at what was best for the U.S. dragon population. What happens if someone I placed a positive dragon with goes to a reptile show and holds dragons there? There was a breeder that ended up losing 400 babies from exactly that. He brought back babies that had not sold from a show and within 2 weeks had babies dropping left and right. It was adenovirus. Yes, more questions need to be answered, but you also can't ignore the experiences of people who have gone through this.

I also plan on re-testing all of my dragons (7 total) after brumation to be sure they still test clear before breeding. I threw out over 36 plastic rubbermaid containers and tossed everything that ever came in contact with the babies. I am going to investigate further what solution will kill the virus. I have a commercial grade disinfectant that kills all types of viruses, bacteria and fungus. I am going to contact the company to check regarding its effectiveness on killing adenovirus. This is about education and I hope that we will get more answers as times goes on. But, I feel we should error on the side of caution and not say, "well they don't know for sure how it is transmitted or if there are different strains, so I can sell the babies and hope for the best." It is my understanding with using the fixative and proper collection procedure with fecal em testing, that a positive is a positive. Clyde had very rare (as in amount) adenovirus cells. It was enough to infect many clutches and I feel is enough to warrant not selling any babies that test positive for this virus.

 

[CheriS]

Tt use a partial phrase of another

The weight of Wendy'd post can not be calculated

Look at the face and eyes of that baby, 24 hours from death of adneovirus.. then ask yourself again who has a personal agenda?

 

[Valley Dragons]

Wendy, I'm sorry for your loss, and I was not referring to your need to put down your babies as slaughter. That statement was not directed at you personally, and I feel that it was taken a bit out of context. I was expressing my concern over those who will panic and put down animals needlessly. I understand that you realistically could not take on the resposibility of caring for all of your hatchlings yourself and waiting to see how things played out wiht the virus. That could take years. Under your circumstances, I agree that putting them down was much preferable to selling them to the public at this point. Obviously your dragons must have had a more lethal strain than perhaps others who have dealt with this.

This thread was originally started by someone concerned about Sunshine Dragons selling adenovirus positive babies. It has turned into 24 pages of arguing back and forth. I think everyone has made their points, and I don't see any reason to continue posting here unless someone has some good, hard evidence that Sunshine has done wrong. Afterall, this is BOI, and the focus should be on what Sunshine dragons has or has not done wrong. I know that I contributed to swinging this thread into another direction, and I'm sorry for that. If anyone has anything else to say to me that does not directly concern Sunshine dragons, then feel free to send me a PM. I will not respond to anymore personal attacks on this thread, nor will I instigate any. This is getting silly.

Signing off....

Jamie

 

[dvandriesen]

After getting in contact with Bruce we are working something out and he is going to be having the dragon tested. On tuesday im going to meet up with him and were going to work something out from there so that helps alot. Both the parents of my dragons Blaze and Storm he said tested negative to aden. Im happy im having this situation taken care of. Drew

I did not include in this message that i will be getting refunded he tried working out giving me another dragon and my money back but i dont want that for all my troubles im going to give it sometime and buy one from a source that i know and hasnt had any problems like this.