little red passed away tonight :(
Sorry to say i lost Red tonight , i took him to The Wylie Veterinary Centre in Upminster today to see William Lewis (BVSc CertZooMed MRCVS) who holds a Certificate in Exotic Medicine and specialises in the treatment of reptiles. i spent over an hour with him doing the stool tests and talking about the 2 poorly dragons symtoms , i was thinking he was going to say it was parasites or somthing that could be treated ,but was shocked when he told me they have adeno virus which is becoming more common and only results in one outcome with most young dragons and that is death ,
I have learnt a very big lesson in the reason why we should quarantine any new animals that we are adding to an ongoing and healthy colony of reptiles as the vet also informed me that my other 2 dragons will almost definatley be infected and will have to live their lives isolated and i cannot breed from either of them if they live . i have done a lot of reading today when i got home from the vets and this is just a small section of some info on the virus i will copy and paste here ,
In a study published by the Journal of Virology, [3] intranuclear inclusions, or infected cells, were found in the intestinal mucosa, hepatocytes, and bile ducts. Even where an Agamid shows no signs of infection, many are believed to be sub-clinically infected, or carriers of the virus. Although they show no signs they can infect others. It is known that the virus is transferable through fecal-oral contact, however it is speculated that it can be passed in ways as of current research are unknown. Agamid Adenovirus is becoming widespread in the United States, with several breeders admitting infection and shutting down their current projects. However some breeders are still not convinced of the dangers of Agamid Adenovirus, thus they do not test, they could be selling Adenovirus positive offspring. A report from Louisiana State University [4] found that baby and juvenile Bearded Dragons have a high mortality rate associated with this virus.
The following is quoted from Cheri Smith's compilation of Adenovirus symptoms[5]: "Any animal that is suspected of having this virus should be isolated, never breed and great care taken when handling between animals. All animals in contact with another that is suspected of having it or confirmed should be isolated from each other, never bred, certainly never sold to others that may unknowingly start the cycle again with other animals. One confirmed case had a couple with an ill animal that brought it to a breeder to look at and he followed all safety precautions, only to find the couple handling some of his babies while he was looking at theirs, 10 days later his entire clutch was ill and dying, it passes that easily! Another breeder at a show in NY, returned from the show and had babies dying that tested positive within 2 weeks (since that time, 2 other breeders that attend the same show have also lost their colony of dragons to the virus)"
In 2005 it was noted by Cheri Smith that "Sibling clutches have been tested and some are positive, some are negative in the same clutch. This leads to the theory that some are infected when the eggs pass through the cloaca and pick up viral particles or some are infected before they are shelled when others are spared."[5]
R.I.P little Red :(
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