Your boyfriend performed the autopsy???

No offense here, but I have a hard time taking your word as fact because HE performed the autopsy. If you had said you paid your vet to perform the necropsy and that was the conclusion that he came up with in writing, then I would have to give that some credit. Many many things can cause the impaction of a Bearded Dragon,, for instance the type of substrate it was on, lack of uvb to enable proper digestion, and the list goes on,
Again please understand that I am not trying to be rude, just questioning the validity of a necropsy performed at home by someone who is not a vet.
By the way,, if you knew that the Bearded Dragon was impacted,, vets
do perform surgeries that do save their lives, I have had a few of them done with some of the animals that come in here. They are spendy but it can be done.
Again please understand I am not trying to offend you. It is just to inform the many who will stumble across this thread.

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I have sucker tattood on my forehead

I have to agree with what Nate said. The leading cause that I've seen of impaction is a reptile being dehydrated. When they are dehydrated the intestines lose the ability to stretch making blockage a harsh reality. This is also the case with blockage caused indirectly by substrate.
Still brings me back to my original point though that I have yet to find some scientific evidence on the chitin subject.

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa

May I ask what substrate he was on?

The reason I ask is because we often attribute things like this to one thing when it was really another. And I really would like to know more definitively if it was something in the substrate or actually what they're eating in these cases.

If your Bearded Dragon was on a substrate like sand or repti-bark, it's much more likely to be impacted from having swallowed bits of that. Calci-sand especially is known to cause impactions.

I suppose it might be possible to have mealworms be a contributing factor in the impaction, but at the same time it's really hard for me to believe. You would think if they have a real problem digesting mealworm exoskeletons, you would find bits of them in their poo all the time. Is that something that is common with Bearded Dragons?

I wish we could find a real study done on whether or not undigested exoskeleton is a major cause in impaction as opposed to bits of sand or bark. That would be a really interesting process, I'm sure. I'd love to read about the results.

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"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.

I too believe there are other factors in play. I don't disagree that chitin can be hard to digest, but healthy animals have proven to be more than capable of digesting it without an issue. Since the animal was a rescue, its likely that the animal was getting subpar treatment before you got it and things may not have been set up accordingly. Lack of adequate heating would certainly have played a factor in the digestion process. Substrate ingestion, especially if it were calcisand (neutralizes the stomach acid and increases the chance of an impaction).

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My Bearded Dragon is 5 months old and I have avoided mealworms like a plague due to what I have read about the "dangers" of feeding them. Is there a specific age where they should be avoided all together?

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i agree with all of you. i believe that the Bearded Dragon that I tried to save was not taken care of at all before I got my hands on it. the previous owners were not very easy to get info from. i only met the previous owners through my local pet store who called me when they were asked if they knew of anyone who would like to have the bearded dragon. i think that it was ONLY fed meal worms! no veggies or crickets at all and was not kept hydrated at all! which would explain the impaction. yes if you only use meal worms in moderation with a proper diet they can be fine! i personally have not ever had a problem with meal worms with my bearded dragons as well as mountain horned dragons when I have used them as snacks.

i know nothing about geckos so I cannot answer those questions but I am just guessing that Bearded Dragons and geckos stomaches and digestive tracks are different. i know that bearded dragons cannot eat very large items (food cannot be bigger than the size between their eyes) is that the same with geckos?

as per the autopsy questions, yes my bf did preform the autopsy and not a vet because he has all ways been interested in that side of herps. he has done a ton of research and was very confident that he could preform it. the animal had died even though we did everything we could do. also the cost of the autopsy was incredibly high! we had taken it to a vet before it died. he said that the impaction was way too large for them to be able to help it survive and the autopsy would have cost a fortune! if there was a chance that the little guy could have been saved I would have defiantly spent the money. unfortunately I am not as rich as I would like to be.

i am pretty sure (not completely) that the substrate was not the issue as it was not seen in the lump that came out of the Bearded Dragon. the previous owners had it on the coconut husk substrate stuff and we had it on the seed substrate stuff from zoomed! (the seed stuff is easily passed by the Bearded Dragons, i have used it with other juvenile bearded dragons and have defiantly proven that they can pass it)

i am sorry if I have mad anyone mad. my words are only from my experience with these wonderful creatures and my opinion. all I can say is I saw what came out of the poor little guy and I know what I saw. i am very familiar with mean worms and know what their skin looks like. that is what the impaction was made of.

Almost every "bad" substrate can pass through the system. That isn't the problem. If you are seeing the substrate in the stool, that means they are ingesting it. If they are ingesting it, the risk for an impaction is present.

Sand is a great example. It is much smaller than the seeded substrate. It can be seen in the stool, which means it is being passed through the system. The problems occurs when a single grain gets logged, and a chronic impaction begins.

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Don't worry. You haven't made us mad, you've just given us more to talk about! We really like these debates as long as everyone treats each other with respect.

Actually I was hoping we hadn't frightened you off. (We can be a little blunt with our information sometimes.)

Edit - I should add that I'm trying to find information in actual book form as well, but life's been a little too hectic lately for me to do much outside research. Hopefully I'll be able to do some soon.


I've been doing a little outside reading on this as well since I first posted the question. The debate on this seems to be two-part from what I've read. (1) The chitin is too hard for the bearded dragons to digest or (2) Meal worms have a high fat content as compared to the nutrition they provide. (Some combine these, actually, saying the ratio of chitin to actual "meat" is too high and unsafe.)

Unfortunately all I've found is conflicting information. One site gives you one ratio, and another gives you a different one. It's frustrating.

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"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.