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Bearded Dragon Respiratory Infection?

4K views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  murrindindi  
#1 ·
My Bearded Dragon has shown some signs of an RI, but I'm not entirely sure what to do from here.

Shes been swallowing quite often, you can hear her breathe, and sometimes she moves forwards in a "coughing" motion?

She started swallowing around 3 months ago, but she only did this in the bath. Around 1 month ago, she began her loud breathing and coughing, she also began swallowing in her tank. I noticed she often slept with her head up. I searched online and saw that people had suggested Colloidal Silver or F10 SC. My parents wouldn't let me order Colloidal Silver because they didn't trust any of the sites. I got F10 SC, put a tiny bit into a nebulizer, along with water, and placed her inside a smaller tank. I was told to keep her in there for 10 minutes, but she began gasping for air within a minute.

I took her out immediately and she stopped gasping, for the next hour she was swallowing loudly a lot. But after that, she hasn't been swallowing or coughing.

Her humidity sits at 30-40% during the day, and at night it never exceeds 45%. Her warm side sits at 109, her cold side at 80. I can't find what could've caused an RI.

What could've caused it?

How should I alter her treatment to keep her from gasping for air like that?

Is there Colloidal Silver available on Amazon that will work for Bearded Dragons?
 
#3 ·
Hi, there is no need to forcibly bathe the dragon.
How are you measuring the ambient (air) temps and what`s the basking surface temp and how is that measured?
I think the problem might be the ambient temps are too high on the "warm side" and the lower ambient are also too high.
You basically need to know just 2 temps during "activity time" (normally during the day) those are approx. 100 to 115F on the basking surface object (which should be large enough to allow that gradient) and approx. 72 to 75F in the cooler parts.
Nighttime, I would personally not go below approx. 68F even though they can tolerate lower (unless the animal is brumating).
The humidity needs to range between approx. 30 to 60%+ (contrary to popular opinion) the lower figure will be immediately around the basking site the higher in the hides/burrows. It might be that the lizard is suffering because of those issues rather than having a R/I?
Can you also put a couple of photos up of the whole enclosure including a top view?