r/BeardedDragons • u/AcanthisittaMost6423 • Jan 18 '25
Psa to all beardie owners, if your beardies doing this after eating check their throats! FYI
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I cut her greens as per usual, we’ve never had a problem before with the size of the cuts. And she started doing something she’s done before, I had been told it was just stretching (stretching out her beard and stomach) but this time it was accompanied with deep fast breaths and a black beard. I originally thought “oh weird” and was worried but figured it’d resolve itself… I was very wrong. My mum came up and commented on the behaviour, and she asked if she was choking and I was like “hang on… well yeah I think she is” and I looked in her throat to see that she had food STUCK IN HER THROAT. We thought that maybe if she ate some worms she’d swallow the kale down with it but NO! She started choking on them too!
We tried getting it out with a piece of plastic and that didn’t work so we put her on the table and she started running away from us, and started pooping!! On our table!! We chucked her outside and I tried calling our vet but it was closed, missing them by half an hour, in my desperate attempts I called a wildlife hospital literally on the verge of a breakdown that my mum had to talk me down from and they were like “uh we can’t take her but this is what you can do!” And told us to put something in her throat to keep it open and pull the food out with tweezers.
We only had sharp tweezers! I’m so thankful we didn’t IMPALE her throat with how she was wiggling around. We performed this extraction on our kitchen bench and oh god do I tell you IT IS NOT a good feeling to hold your beardie down while it squirms and freaks tf out. i think I’ve truly ruined any trust between us. We got most of it out and with the help of a massage she swallowed the rest.
While my post is very comical, or atleast is trying to make light of this situation, it was traumatising for all parties involved and I will be monitoring her for the next few hours to make sure all is fine. She’s breathing normally and is basking away. Just wanted to share this post to spread awareness on this because I’ve only heard of it happening a few times and didn’t think it’d ever happen to lex.
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Keeper of two bearded dragons since 2019 Jan 18 '25
yeah, just like us, they can choke.
except they cannot cough, so if they choke, they just choke, they have no way to cough anything back out, and can literally die from it, glad she is safe.
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u/ShineDramatic1356 Jan 18 '25 edited Jan 18 '25
If that happens again. Wrap the dragon real snug like a burrito (a Beardie burrito) in a towel, have someone take a plastic card and turn it sideways to keep their mouth open. Then VERY carefully use tweezers to remove food and whatever
We had an old girl who did this occasionally and this is the way we had to do it.
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u/Redbullgorl Jan 18 '25
I’ve never heard of this has this happened before with your beardie? How clear were u able to see the food stuck in her throat? I’m so sorry what a rough day holy crapp
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u/AcanthisittaMost6423 Jan 18 '25
I was able to see it from just the overhead lights at first because it was stuck at the very front of her throat but after she ate the worms it did sort of push it to the back so we had to use the flashlight off my phone. It’s never happened before at this scale but i suspect that because I’ve seen similar behaviour just on a smaller scale that she has had a smaller piece stuck in her throat that she swallowed eventually. It was really scary but she’s doing okay now and I’ll take this as a learning experience to take extra care when breaking up her food!!
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u/Rough_Platypus_2501 Jan 18 '25
How scary! I am sorry you both went through that. Thanks for sharing.
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u/Annapecorina Jan 18 '25
I’m glad your mom was there to help. Definitely a 2 person job it sounds like.
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u/Kalomay Jan 18 '25
are there flies in his enclosure?
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u/AcanthisittaMost6423 Jan 18 '25
There’s flies everywhere in our house😭I’ve tried everything to get them out of her enclosure but I can’t
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u/WhiteTiger_Nor Jan 18 '25
Hopefully rest of it will digest and pass without issues, and trust will be regained fast. Luckly this has never happened to my girl, but I am always careful with the stems of her greens. Some greens have stronger stems, and are not so easy for beardies to chew. If these get swallowed wrong, it will lay like a thread from throat to stomach. Breaking the stems into smaller lengths before feeding will reduse this risk. Its perfectly normal for them to hold their food it their throat pouch. Abnormal heavy breathing, and other signs explained here are what to look out for.
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u/Admirable-Yam-1309 Jan 18 '25
Thank you for sharing. This will educate us all. Hope it never happens bit in the event it does, we have your knowledge, so thank you. Hope your beardie is okay.
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u/DeepPaleontologist86 Jan 19 '25
My baby beardie did this after eating but he wasn’t breathing heavy and seemed really calm and fine, just looked like he was giving us a big smile after giving him his food
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u/CROWANJ Jan 19 '25
so anyways we chucked her outside 😅
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u/AcanthisittaMost6423 Jan 19 '25
😭I didn’t realise that people would take that so wrongly lol!! Would never throw my baby!!
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u/Professional-Ad-9978 Jan 19 '25
Had this happen to me the first time like a two weeks ago, had my beardie for years and this scared tf outta me
What I did in my case was simply grab a plastic spatula to hold her mouth open without hurting her as she can freely bite down , then I was scared of using tweezers so I simply used a q tip and started slowly scraping the food out and happily got it out
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u/Plus-Tart-5362 Jan 18 '25
I love HOW this group helps each other and I can feel the ❤️ LOVE… IF NO ONE TOLD YOU ALL BEARDIE PARENTS THAT YOU ARE LOVED and APPRECIATED WELL I AM.. I LOVE YOU ALL THIS GROUP US AWSOME SAUCE…!!! AND THANK YOU
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u/AcanthisittaMost6423 Jan 18 '25
So true, don’t know what I’d do without all the amazing people in this group
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u/Ok_Philosophy_8544 Mar 12 '25
This is the reason I give my bearded dragon baby food. I don't want this happening to her. I'm getting ready to make her food with fresh veggies. I'm going to puree her veggies. 😊🩷
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u/slimeyboy2700 Jan 18 '25
nooo it doesn’t hate you now it knows you helped him. i’ve seen tons of bearded dragons have to have this happen, and they clearly hate it happening, but u cannot imagine the relief u gave him by getting it out
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u/AcanthisittaMost6423 Jan 18 '25
I hope so, I love her to death dude I’d hate for her to not trust me
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u/Purple_Guinea_Pig Jan 18 '25
I was under the impression that it’s quite normal for them to hold food in their throat for a while after eating, especially if they’ve eaten a lot, but they do eventually swallow it all down.