Beardy missing limb ...

Question
QUESTION: Apparently he didn't understand the phrase "No means No" ...

He is a recent rescue that was being cared for by another family using a non-herp vet.  His left hand is missing save for his "index" and middle fingers due to him wanting to get loving with his girlfriend (with whom they've sired 8 clutches together in the past no issues) and her not wanting too ... so she bit his hand off ...

Anyway, the non-herp vet put him on a silver something salve (I'd have to check the label again) and the previous owners were very good at following through with that end of the care.  They had removed all substrate save his towel to prevent any issues with stuff getting in the wound.

Anyway, his appointment is in two weeks with our local herp vet (he's also the herp vet for the Virginia living museum and Busch Gardens previous reptile display so I trust him implicitly), but until then I wanted to know if there was anything I can do to help him be more comfortable.

His enclosure is currently a 75 gallon long tank with a zoo-med power-sun 10 mercury lamp at 20" off the tank floor putting the heat zones at ~98-103F in the basking area and ~74-77F in the cool side of the enclosure, and around 80F in the hide (which is between the two temp zones).  We are using a small water dish in the hide area for his hydration (he drinks from it religiously at around 2 in the afternoon ... trained perhaps) and take it out at night when he crashes for the night.  His substrate is a daily clean towel (changed in the morning after his duties are completed), and he has a leafy log he can sit on between the hot and cool zones of the enclosure.

His food currently is a salad consisting of 2 strawberries, a quarter cucumber (minced small for ease of eating), a quarter summer squash, ~1/8 pound of mustard and collard greens.  This is dusted with a calcium supplement, and the occasional slice of apple or banana.  He receives 10-20 crickets every third day (I giggle every time he hunts, he shakes his tail before striking, and then smacks his lips when eating...so freaking hilarious!).  He is eating twice a day happily on this and weighs about 3-5 pounds (I haven't weighed him since getting him for fear the scale might hurt his hand more due to the texture).  His approximate age is around 5-6 years.

With his missing leg he moves kind of slow, but he travels well for having a missing hand.  He does have one finger bone showing from the wound.

We rub the silver salve stuff on his wound daily and we wrap it in gauze every other day, the second day we allow it to air dry.  We do this because when we wrapped it daily it seemed that the wound was "leaking".

Basically I'm looking for input on what we could do to make his life abit more comfortable until we can see the herp-vet in a couple weeks.

Any advise would be very welcome.  Thank you for your time.

Bubba
Williamsburg, VA

ANSWER: All looks fine to me, I would not wrap the wound at all.  Does the "herp vet" know the dragon has an open wound?  2 weeks is way to long!  He should at least go over care over the phone with you.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I was only able to speak with the receptionist. I
did inform her that the wound was open and
healing but being covered with the salve daily.
The vet is out this coming week and was
booked last week, which is why I came here.

So don't wrap the hand any more?  Would a
picture help?

Answer
I'm not a vet so if you have orders from a vet saying to wrap it, do so.  Any vet has more medical training than I do.  You've removed the substrate from the cage and are applying the salve so there is not much that can get into the wound.  If the wound is not bleeding and nothing can into it, I don't see the point in wrapping it.  My concern, would be infection, I think injectable antibiotics MIGHT be needed at this point, BUT AGAIN I am NOT a vet.