Hatchling vet check-ups?

[ShadowRancher]

Hi, I'm new (introduced myself yesterday) with a baby Sulcatta. I was wondering, several sites I've found have stressed the importance of an initial vet visit to check everything out. Any thoughts on this? I checked the tort vet thread and luckily the recommended DVM for Columbia is already my beardies vet so it wouldn't be a problem to take Levi in I just want to know if it is at all necessary.

Cheers,
Ana

 

[zesty_17]

I haven't taken my little guys to the vet just yet. I wanted them to establish first & start eating before i changed anything or stressed them out with a vet visit. (They were hatched in August, and they are doing great, so it is about time to schedule one-thanks for the reminder!)

 

[CtTortoiseMom]

I plan to take my hatchling at a year. But my big leopard is due to go in December for her annual visit and I might just take my hatchling then. I think it is important to establish a baseline and I give pictures of the enclosures with diet and average temps listed in case anything went wrong so that the vet to have all of the pertinent info.

 

[ShadowRancher]

Good point... Levi is eating fine and seems happy and outgoing but I'll give him some time before I schedule an appointment. I have tons of pics of everything on my ipad so I will remember to take that.

And I'm happy to be of, inadvertent, service Zesty.

 

[Tortoise]

Never had that as an option due to lack of reptile experience in vets. I only go when I have to and then need to have done my research first to work out what needs to be done.

I guess if you had a vet with reptile experience-that would be really quite useful.


(If I had serious troubles my nearest exotic vet is a 10 hour drive away (round trip)and yes we do make that trip with alpacas when necessary.)

That's rural living for ya!!

 

[ShadowRancher]

(If I had serious troubles my nearest exotic vet is a 10 hour drive away (round trip)and yes we do make that trip with alpacas when necessary.)

That's rural living for ya!!

I feel your pain I'm from rural Michigan (just headed south for school), I can't wait to get back though... I already have my grandfather figuring out a corner of the heated barn that we can cut a hole through and have an indoor/outdoor enclosure for Levi.

One of the harder things will be leaving my vet behind, one of the few DVM's I've meet that knows more about my beardie than I do. I'm sure he'll be just as Great with with Tortoises (and only 15 minutes away!)

 

[Tom]

I think it would be a good thing to establish contact with a vet ahead of time and get all your "patient" info into the computer. If anything ever did go wrong it will make things a lot easier if you already have a relationship with your vet and the hospital, vs. walking in cold with a problem.

 

[Tony the tank]

I rarely take my healhy reptiles to the vet for check ups ... But at the first sign of illness I'm on my way....And since I'm driving the hr and paying the standard exotic animal $200 vet visit.. I ask for complete blood work..and fecal test...

Then I ask for copies of the results and place it in a folder..incase we need to establish a baseline somewhere else...

I always worm all my animals myself when I first get them (panacur and flagyl...)

 

[ShadowRancher]

Thanks for the input guys, I have an appointment for Levi all set up for Friday

 

[ShadowRancher]

Appointment went great, vet was impressed with his health ( which I don't think I can really take credit for yet since we're only 2 weeks in ) and he is parasite free...thanks again for the feedback

 

[cfwinged1]

I just took my hatchling Bubbles (yellow foot) to the vet because I was concerned with her hind legs always sticking out
like she may be constipated, but the vet said she was great she just needed more weight on her.I was relived I did and next I take Willow (red foot) next week.My vet said i could take Bubbles to get weighed evry 2 weeks to keep an eye on her, thought that was nice,at no charge!

 

[ShadowRancher]

So glad bubbles is ok! And yeah, vets can be pretty awesome. I'm a Bio student with access to gram scales and microscopes so I can weigh Levi myself but my vet showed me what to look for in stool samples as far as parasites for future reference. Yes, I said it, I make poo slides now