Sorry if this might be in the wrong place, wasn't sure where to post it. Just wondering if any of you live in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area in Texas and if you know a reputable Herp Vet. My herps seem to be fine, but I've never had them examined or fecal samples tested, and I'd like to, for my peace of mind. Also I want to have their number around in case there is ever an emergency. I plan to be keeping some very large herps that will live quite a while (various monitor species), and it makes me uneasy to think that if there was an emergency I'd have nobody to give them medical aid other than myself.
Good for you for being concerned and prepared! I don't live in Texas, but I hope someone can help you out. Is there a college around there? I'm lucky enough that the small animal teaching hospital is about two minutes from my apartment here, so if I ever had an emergency, I could go just down the street.
I live in Dallas. I would recommend Dr. Tate or Dr. Murphy at City Vethttp://cityvet.com/. They are downtown, on McKinney. This office is also a 24 hour emergency clinic, which is awesome. Another great one is Dr. Sue Chastain at Preston Road Animal Hospital http://prah.com/. The cool thing about this office is that they will board herps! I think City Vet may end up boarding herps, now that Drs Tate & Murphy bought into it, they didn't see herps at all before. They used to both work at Preston Road w/ Dr. Chastain, that's where we've been going for 3 years so that's how I know all of them.
It's hard to say. When it comes to diagnosis and medicine I'd trust all three with my reptile's lives. I've disagreed once with Dr. Murphy's opinions on husbandry, more specifically food for beardies. He thinks that pinkies are a good staple food for beardies, using Melissa Keplan's website as a source. I think her website is good, but severly outdated, and I won't feed my beardies pinks. That's the only, only thing I've ever questioned any of them about. I still have all the respect in the world for Dr. Murphy and I trust him with my animals, he's done a lot for us and most recently he saved my beardie from not one, but TWO impactions back-to-back that I coulnd't get to pass with soaks. (the impactions were from a bad suppliment, not food.) So again, when it comes to medicine and treatment for my herps I trust all three, which is really what a good vet is all about. They don't spend 8 years learning husbandry, they learn anatomy and medicine, and that's what I go to them for. None of them have done anything that I could say stands out and makes them better with herps than the others, they've all helped in one case or another. If you want my personal favorite, if I had to choose only one, I'd choose Dr. Tate. She is just awesome, very compassionate, understanding, knowledgable, and respectable.
