Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Bent Blue tounge


This Bluey (northern Blue tounge lizard) isn't really wildlife. It was actually pick up by some one who kept it as a pet. Unfortunately they didn't know what they were doing and kept it inside in an old fish tank and fed it mince meat. It seemed to do well for a while but became bendy and stopped moving much. So they surrendered it to us. Unwhittingly they had given it metabolic bone disease. This happened because the glass in the tank filters out the ultraviolet light which is neccessary for calcium metabolism and there was no calcium in its diet anyway. So the bones became rubbery and fragile. On xray it had lots of breaks and its bones were paper thin. With proper care and lots of calcium and uv light it should recover but it will probably always have bent back.

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