bearded dragon with a yellow mouth

Re: bearded dragon with a yellow mouth

CatherineThomas — Fri, 02 May 2014 15:01:39 GMT

[quote user="scatty"]

Thank you both of you for your replies,

In answer to Catherine's questions about husbandary, she is being kept in a 4 '[x 2' x 2' viv with a 100 W bulb, temperature between 28 and 34 C. with oyster shell, bamboo root and some plastic plants. There is a thermostat and thermometers to measure temp. The owner got her as a rescue 5 months ago, no known history of any eggs. She is fed with calcium sprinkled from a dusting pot (not measured directly) on top of salad (rocket, baby leaf and kale every now and then), liver food every 2-3 days - locusts, fruit beetle grubs, crickets and waxworms every now and then. If anything strikes you as lacking about this let me know!

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There are just a couple of points. First is the temperatures, make sure she is using a digital thermometer with a probe and when that probe is directly under the heat lamp on the basking spot it should be around about 95-100 F. Also make sure the live food is dusted in calcium and gut loaded with a bug food. And make sure the temperatures are lowered and light is off at night.

Re: bearded dragon with a yellow mouth

scatty — Fri, 02 May 2014 11:50:35 GMT

Thank you both of you for your replies,

We may well get some blood from her as a starting point - thinking of using PALs lab as I see it has been recommended on this forum. Thanks a lot for the advice.

Anna

Re: bearded dragon with a yellow mouth

Marie Kubiak — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 17:18:54 GMT

Unlikely to be jaundice - reptiles lack the reductase enzyme to form bilirubin so their primary bile pigment is biliverdin, which is green, so yellowing of membranes shouldn't happen with liver compromise. Usually with hepatic dysfunction you'll see green discolouration of urates rather than the yellow mucous membrane changes seen in mammals. Saying that I had a grey parrot that developed what appeared to be jaundice and went a startling yellow colour with a very large liver mass and no-one could explain how the yellow pigmentation had been formed as the same biliverdin pathways are present in birds too. That was however a very obviously sick animal in contrast to this beardie.

Many beardies have yellow oral membranes normally - is it possible the owner just hasn't noticed that this individual has yellow membranes previously? If genuinely a recent change then I would consider anaemia a possibility - the absence of pink colouration to mucous membranes then makes the previously inconspicous yellow pigmentation more prominent.

Options would be to leave alone if the animal is well and no coelomic masses/abnormalities are palpable, and only intervene if anything else develops, or to take blood to check PCV and liver function as a precaution though blood analysis of hepatic function is fairly insensitive in reptiles. I would include AST, bile acids, triglycerides, albumin and uric acid if running biochem for liver assessment.

Marie

Re: bearded dragon with a yellow mouth

CatherineThomas — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 13:39:11 GMT

I find that some reptiles mucous membranes look slightly more yellow than others and it can be difficult to tell what is normal but this does look suspicious for being abnormal. If I have any concerns I always suggest a blood sample for basic biochemistry and haematology. You can get a sample from the ventral tail vein. Mark Rowland has an exotics app which has some good videos of blood sampling of various species. I wouldn't start any treatment in a dragon who appears well apart from the colouration without first getting bloods for a baseline. But the fact that she seems well does not rule out problems, reptiles are very good at coping with problems for a long time before symptoms become obvious.

The other thing you need to do is get a full history of her husbandry, what heat source does she have, how is it controlled, how are temperatures measured, how much calcium supplementation does it receive, which live insects and salad is she fed on, what UV source is provided and when the bulb was last changed, has she ever produced eggs? I find that people often think they are doing everything right but when you get all of the details there is something they are missing.

Other things that may be advisable include ultrasound of the abdomen, x-rays, ex-lap, liver biopsy etc depending on the results. If these things are necessary and you aren't comfortable with them do you know where you could refer her locally?

One other thing that you could do is collect a faecal sample for parasitology which can be sent away to a lab if you don't want to do it yourself, but they are best done as fresh as possible.