Axolotl - worm stuck!!

[LaurenAndChris]

We have an 8 month old axolotl named Pixie.

We are worried about her however as she has a defrosted bloodworm stuck in what I assume is her gill slits, even though it is underneath her chin rather than behind her gills. Everything that we have read suggests that she should have gotten free of it within around 10-15 minutes but it has been around 45 now and she seems to have stopped trying. She was going daft, swimming really quickly around but has settled now and we are not sure what to do???

I hope someone can help as it is rather scary when we can't find anything that suggests how to help her!

 

[celticcrow77]

If she sits still for any amount of time, any chance you could get in there with some chopsticks or a tweezer and gently tug on it? Maybe you could remove it that way. I'm not sure how else to do it, and haven't had this experience myself. Anyone with more experience have any advice?

 

[ZombieAxolotl]

I would scoop her up with your hand and use tweezers or feeding tongs and gently remove it.

 

[Jennistophales]

This has happened to my leucistic quite a few times.

I put him into a small tupperware continer so that he cant swim around much and either get it with tweezers or i try to, like, "stomp" down on the blood worm with a pencil or chopstick so that when the axolotl moves, the bloodworm is stuck underneath the chopstick and slides out.

Just be careful to not snag the gills in the process.