Blind Lizards

[lee]

Last year i had a pair of Lacerta Agilis that appeared in November unfortunately both of these appeared to have been affected by the frost and although I bought them inside both eventually died.

This spring i have had one Lactera Agilis who may be blinded by the late frost and a Lacerta Viridis suffering the same.

The Agilis will disappear at night and come out in the morning he will feed from my fingers so I have some hope that he may improve.

The Viridis has to be put back under cover at night and I'm yet to see him feed.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, Lee

[viridis]

Are they actually blind or is the eyelid sticking to the eye?

If it is the former then you cannot do anything.however,ifi t is the latter bring the lizards inside into a clean warm vivarium without substrate( some newspaper will do) and treat twice daily with Chloramphenicol ointment.You can buy this from the chemist for people,its an antibiotic ointment.Within a couple of weeks the eye should be fine.

[viridis]

Any updates?

[lee]

Yes, sorry been meaning to post.

I had a second Viridis that emerged late and showed similar problems.

Having gone out each evening to ensure they had gone below ground and placed them under shelter if they hadn't. Towards the end of April they all started to do this themselves which made me think they had made progress.

All lizards could open their eyelids but showed little or no reaction to movement. So didn't think the eye medicine would work and that outdoors in the natural light was a more appropriate place for them.

Having had a similar problem with some hatchlings that I purchased some years ago, which resulted in a visit to the vet, which was expensive and also pointless as Baytril was prescribed. I thought that it may be a vitamin problem so force fed a Nutrobal coated cricket to the remaining hatchlings which seemed to work miracles.

So for the one Agilis as he will feed from my fingers I have been able to give him Nutrobal laced food which has brought him round to his normal self, just hope he will shed to his breeding colours soon.

Neither Viridis would take food from the hand, forceps or willing to hunt. So I placed a small amount of the powder on a saucer and disolved this in water which one of the lizards was willing to drink over the bank holiday weekend and has been hunting and feeding since.

The other Viridis wouldn't drink the vitamin laced water but did eat a wax worm at the weekend but this took quite a bit of provocation and me getting bitten a few times. Unfortunately this lizard died on Tuesday this week.

These Lizards have been outside for over 4 years and i thought that vitamin deficiencies wouldn't be an issue due to the range of food, vitamin dusting and natural light. Whether the problems were due to last years poor weather I'm not sure. I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Thanks for the help.

Lee

[viridis]

Hi Lee thats a new one on me.I have heard that some Lacertids need quite high levels of vitamin A.It would be interesting to hear other peoples thoughts.

[monkeyboy]

I had a 3 year old female argus emerge blind from hibernation last year and assumed it was a problem with substrate humidity (she'd been in a box of sand/ peat/coir mix in the shed). I wondered if it was too wet or too dry. I have also been told that some blindness can be result of incomplete sheding ie scales around eyes get stuck on. Interesting that extra vits seemed to have perked up some of your animals, pehaps lack of sun last year did play a part?