Rescue!

[guidofatherof5]

I would like to recyle this old thread to start no new one with the same title and stonyloam wrote a good introduction, I couldn´t do better.


This is the pos. het for amelanistic three days after her last feeding:
quiet skinny again.
I hope she´ll take a big portion again today.

Keep us posted on the progress, Udo.

[zooplan]

Zora had a really big meal, but this one swallowed two or three small freshwater smelts (Osmerus eperlanus) only. I´ll buy some night crawlers today. She´s so skinny, I´m worrying that she might have flagellates or amoebas. I need her to feed and produce feces for an examination.

[suzoo]

Rick, that squirrel story is so funny!!! I could see it happening!!!
Everyone out here thinks I'm nuts, my kids and I have been rescuing snakes and turtles off our roads for over 15 years now. My bumper sticker on my car say's "I brake for snakes".

So you can imagine what the locals think of me

[Thamnophis]

So you can imagine what the locals think of me

They probably think you are crazy...
Doesn't matter! Let them think what they want.
Keep on braking!!!

[ConcinusMan]

Awww, poor girl. I hope she does pound down some pinkies for you today.

[Floof]

My beardies were all rescues.

The girls were abandoned in an apartment when their owners got evicted (or something), and the guy that found them put them up on Craigslist as "free to good home." Pretty simple and straight-forward story. I'm still shocked how healthy they are after their ordeal... Other than all the injuries from years of being housed together, of course.

My baby boy was kind of an "accident." Back in 2009, we went to buy a couple tanks for a couple snakes (Craigslist again), and, as we went to load the tanks up in the car, the guy mentioned he had a lizard, and that I could have it if I wanted it--he was just going to let it go in the neighboring field if no one wanted it (this being the middle of January in very wet western Washington; even the native Alligator lizards were hibernating). So he opened the very cold garage, where he was keeping this stunted adult (~15-16") bearded dragon in a little 20 gallon (long) tank with 3 big, bright heat lamps left on 24/7, no water, and the only food was some red pellet stuff. No surprise he was very obviously dehydrated, emaciated, hardly moving, and none too friendly (but too worn out to do more than "pancake" and hiss a little) when I went to see if he was even alive. The guy wanted him GONE... Saying we could have him free with all of his stuff... Which is good, because there was no way I was leaving him there, anyway.

Here he is one week after we got him...



I didn't weigh him until his first vet visit, a month after we got him, and he weighed 195 grams. It's hard to imagine how little he might have weighed before a month of good food...

Today, though, he weighs 497 grams, measures 18" snout to tail tip, and looks like this:



He also turned into a total sweetheart within days of good food and TLC. So far, he's the only reptile I've met that truly seems to enjoy being handled!! Which is a little amazing after we had to man-handle him every day for more than a month to tube-feed him pure liquid calcium. Lately, he's discovered women, and smelling the girls across the room often has him stressed out--black-bearding and head-bobbing at everything he sees. Horny little snot. Setting him on someone's lap for a few minutes is the one thing guaranteed to calm him down. ... Except live food. He loves him some roaches and hornworms.

[Floof]

Concinnusman-- It was actually up in Tumwater, just south of Olympia. It's rather upsetting to hear the situation isn't uncommon. In Man Ray's case, the kid dumped it on his parents when he moved out of state, and it was the father that gave him to me.
Gorgeous snake, by the way. Glad he's doing well for you after his ordeal.

Zooplan, I hope your girl bounces back and does well!

[ConcinusMan]

Meanwhile, all 3 big adult 3-stripe concinnus girls I had (I have one, the other two are with other people) just suddenly went downhill and I can't figure out what the problem is. I can save an anery that is half-dead, but I can't seem to save a couple of others that were perfectly healthy a few months ago.

[ConcinusMan]

Another shot of the anery concinnus rescue. Remember this is a snake that had lateral skin folds and was on the verge of starvation a couple of months ago and nearly too weak to eat. We're talking "hopeless". I think there's hope for your girl for sure Udo.

[zooplan]

Thank you for the consolation.
She had no interest in the night crawlers, but ate a single small chicken heart, after offering it five times.