RIP Little Jake

Jake died, we are not sure why, but we believe it to be something genetic. All 3 of my babies are from the same mother-father breeding, just different clutches. Bindi did some of the same things we saw in Jake before he died, only Bindi seems normal now, other than being tiny compared to her sibling, Jake's sister Emily. Jake was even bigger than Bindi. I have notified the breeder of this problem, she offered a replacement, but we declined based on out of 3 babies we have gotten from her so far, only 1 seems to be healthy as a horse, the other being way tiny..and now the male has died. As it was, Jake was Bindi's replacement.

We are very upset about this, we were getting really attached.

Sorry for your loss, How old was he when you got him ? BD's highest mortality rate is in the first 4 weeks.

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Originally Posted by Python-77

Sorry for your loss, How old was he when you got him ? BD's highest mortality rate is in the first 4 weeks.

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He was 5 weeks when we brought him home. And was to be 6 weeks tomarrow. I think it may be from a genetic issue. When we got Bindi from this breeder over a month ago, she had to be taken back to the breeder just after a week. Bindi was lathargic, not really eating, but was well hydrated for sure. We picked Bindi back up from the breeder at the same time I got Jake (Bindi's replacement) and Emily because the breeder offered her to us, Bindi is still not growing right, she is now over 10 weeks old, and still as tiny as a 6 week old baby...and she eats crix maybe once every few days. Her animal protien must come from scrambled eggs because she does not want to eat bugs. However, Bindi is in the process of starting a shed, which means she is obviously growing, just not normal. Jake acted much like Bindi, at first I did not think too much about it, not for the first few days, but when it continued, even after his sister Emily got over the move, I got worried, and started supportive care. He seemed to perk up, and I thought he was doing better, till I found he had died later that day. There was a fecal done on all 3 babies that came into the house recently, they all came up clean. I took Jake to my vet Thursday night, not long after he died, I am waiting for necropsy results. My vet thinks he may be able to get some clue as to whats going on.. genetic or otherwise; says there is visual indicators upon necropsy (enlarged internal organs, smaller internal organs and a few others, just cant remember) Hopefully we will come up with some answers, maybe it would give us an idea of what may be up with Bindi also. My vet also mentioned that he too finds it odd that out of 3 dragons from the same parent breeding, only 1 is healthy from the batch I got. He said it may be inbreeding being done to improve a certain charicteristic the breeder is trying for... which happens to be a stripe down the back.. and that inbreeding does rear its head and failure to thrive can be a sign of it, providing anything else is ruled out.

And the messed up thing.. I feel aweful for taking him for a necropsy, but I know it needs to be done, otherwise we may never know why he died.

My deepest condolences :(

sorry to hear

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Originally Posted by Jeanne

My vet also mentioned that he too finds it odd that out of 3 dragons from the same parent breeding, only 1 is healthy from the batch I got. He said it may be inbreeding being done to improve a certain charicteristic the breeder is trying for... which happens to be a stripe down the back.. and that inbreeding does rear its head and failure to thrive can be a sign of it, providing anything else is ruled out.

And the messed up thing.. I feel aweful for taking him for a necropsy, but I know it needs to be done, otherwise we may never know why he died.

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Another visible sign of BD inbreeding is the bands on their tails will not be perfect all they way around they will be broken. Its not a 100% way to check but in my time with BDs it held up.

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Originally Posted by Python-77

Another visible sign of BD inbreeding is the bands on their tails will not be perfect all they way around they will be broken. Its not a 100% way to check but in my time with BDs it held up.

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Yeah I read that somewhere.. just cant find that page, I think it was from a college..... Bindi has broken tail rings.. and Jake only had a few, farther down his tail, like the 4-6th rings if I remember right. I looked at Emily after reading your post, she has broken tail rings.. they have some pattern to the breaks in the middle top side of her tail..... but she seems very healthy and not to be experiencing any issues.

Our sympathies are with you Jeanne. I know it's hard to let them do the necropsy but if it helps with Bindi's issues and to put your mind to rest why Jake did not thrive, then it will truly be worth it.


~~Jo~~

Sorry to hear.. about the inbreeding.. I am not sure i buy the broken tail bands some of my newest hatchlings have a broken band or two and are from two different blood lines
Btw Jeanne did you get my reply to your PM?

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Originally Posted by RobertCoombs

Sorry to hear.. about the inbreeding.. I am not sure i buy the broken tail bands some of my newest hatchlings have a broken band or two and are from two different blood lines
Btw Jeanne did you get my reply to your PM?

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I think the concern is more over ALOT of broken tail rings, not just a few. But I think the theory may still be too new to prove. Here is a link to info I found on this.. however, it is not the first link I have had for this.. only what I was able to recover when my puter got stupid for the day.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pogona/message/35779

If you cant view it, I have posted the article below.


From: Kathryn Tosney <ktosney@...>
Date: Mon Mar 24, 2003 12:09 pm
Subject: Tail Rings --looong

Kathryn had theorized about the tail rings on Pogonas as relative to
>inbreeding and/or overall health. Someone had started keeping some record
>somewhere of tail ring patterns, looking for where the pattern break occurs
>(close to the body vs. farther down the tail).
>
>Without going into the whole thing, I'm wondering whether any conclusions
>were able to be drawn, or whether this is an ongoing project?
>
>And does it have applications if one is considering acquiring a beardie for
>one's son, who really, really wants one and will even learn to deal with
>super worms?
>
>Scientific minds want to know,
>
>Bea
>Chaya & Ramandu

The theory refers to the pattern of rings (the narrow light bands) on
the tail. I class the ring as the narrow white band. Some dragons
have no breaks in pattern, and the rings are uninterrupted right to
the tail tip. Many dragons have an interruption in pattern at about
the 5th or 6th ring on the tail, counting from the vent. Some have
more than one interruption in pattern along the length.

The hypothesis is that numbers and positions of irregularities can
indicate inbreeding. Note, that the hypothesis doesn't predict health
of an individual dragon, but is instead may indicate the degree of
inbreeding (so that the animal may have more homozygous genes which,
depending on the genes, can be a problem).

Inbreeding usually doesn't produce obvious birth defects in the first
generation, but it does have other bad effects. In many many species,
if siblings are mated, then the progeny show immediate effects:the
fertility diminishes, the hatching rate is lowered (due to early
lethalities; many die early in development), survival through infant
and adolescence is lower and the adult size diminishes (possibly
explaining the general reduction in dragon size over the last
decade). Those effects are seen in the first generation. In later
generations, birth defects also become more common.

I have begun to suspect that that nice long distance between the tail
base and the pattern break might be an indicator of outbreeding, or
of good genetic health and general robustness. I think that because
some "sickly" hatchlings seem to have a pattern break much closer up
the tail to the body, and fail to thrive. Some adults who have been
beset by illnesses also have that pattern, suggesting they are less
robust than others and need more attention to keep healthy. I
gathered the most data at three yearly trips to the International
Reptile Breeder's Exposition in Daytona. I examined a lot of dragons,
and found that incidence of irregularities in the tail pattern
correlated roughly with apparent inbreeding. That is, there were more
pattern irregularities in the brightly colored dragons (hence more
inbred--you have to inbreed for awhile to get such colors "fixed" in
a breeding line) than in the regular dragons. Indeed, I could
practically chart the degree of irregularities with the price of the
dragon-- $100, 90% of the dragons lack irregularities; $200, 50-60%
have irregularities; $300 or more, 90% have irregularities.... Not
that the more inbred dragons were sickly, but that the pattern
appeared to correlate with inbreeding, which could pose possible
problems.

For some of the breeders at Daytona, the brightly colored ones were
showing fewer pattern anomalies last year. I suspect that these
breeders are using careful outbreeding practices: they are retaining
the color gene in their breeding stock, while successfully breeding
in genetic diversity. Dragons from some other breeders do not show
these characteristics.

We do need visible markers for inbreeding... so, tail pattern may be
one, that works for populations. It is certainly not a thoroughly
tested hypothesis, and is still capable of being disproved. More
important: It is unlikely to be a good marker for health on an
individual basis. If you pick a dragon that has irregularities in his
tail pattern, that does NOT mean he will be sickly or die.

Of course, if I were choosing a new dragon for myself, I would choose
an alert, plump dragon, larger than most of his clutchmates (if he is
a baby)...and all else being equal, having a good symmetrical pattern
with few interruptions in the tail pattern.

But then, that is just me.

I would still be interested in hearing from people who have paid
attention to tail patterns and dragon health.

Best, Kathryn

*********************
Kathryn W. Tosney, Professor of Biology, The University of Michigan
http://biology.lsa.umich.edu/researc...ney/index.html
*********************



By the way Robert, I sure did get your reply, Thanks so much for taking the time to reply to me. I will be watching for pics.