Laotriton with sores, not eating

[firedreams]

Hi all,

I recently purchased an adult CB Laotriton from a fellow newt enthusiast. I was told upon purchase that she(?) was a fickle eater, and that she had refused food on the day that I picked her up. I picked her up 1 week ago today, and she has not eaten under my care. 2 days ago she left the water and climbed up on her turtle shelf. I checked all of the water parameters and everything is fine (it is a planted tank with hides and a sponge filter on low). Today I took her out for a closer examination and noticed that she has sores on her body (see attached picture). I immediately removed her from the tank and gave her a 10 min salt bath, then put her in a paper towel quarantine tank and applied Silver Sulfadine (sp?) cream to the sores. Can anyone tell me if this is the right course of action, or provide suggestions?

L

 

[froggy]

Keeping her terrestrial is probably a good idea. I can't really see the sores on her body, where are they? She does look very thin though and clearly hasn't eaten properly for a long while. This species likes quite warm conditions, so make sure she isn't too cold. What temperature was she kept at with the other keeper?
Make sure you keep her completely quarantined as whatever is causing the sores might be contagious.
If she still doesn't eat, it may be worth force-feeding her. You might get her to eat a worm or something if you get it in her mouth, but you may need to tube-feed if she spits out.

Good luck with her

C

 

[Niels D]

Do you mean that spot near the paratoid gland?

 

[jasper408]

The skin also looks excessively shiny as well, unfortunately. For the treatment of sores I've had success by keeping them terrestrially on paper towel, and using triple antibiotic ointment.
Unfortunately, she more than likely stopped eating a very long time ago.

 

[Otterwoman]

Silvadene is good, you're lucky you have some.

 

[firedreams]

There are 2 sores, one on the front left periodical gland, and a big one on her back right hip bone. She is very malnourished as well.

Is force-feeding advisable? My understanding was that it would just stress the animal out more.

 

[firedreams]

What is the optimal temperature for Laotritons? I had assumed that they had the same temperature preference as other newts, and keep my newt room around 67F/19C.

 

[firedreams]

Unfortunately, I don't think she has long for this world. She is too weak to lift her head. I opened her mouth (not hard, as she's so weak) and pushed a wax worm down her throat (she's too weak to swallow), as it seemed like all I could do for her. I doubt she has more than an hour left.

 

[Willlis]

Thats too bad, SSD ointment was a good idea though as was setting her up terrestrial.

 

[froggy]

I think that force feeding might be the only way forward if she won't eat on her own. More than likely prolonged starvation has caused her immune system to crash. What temperature was she kept at before? This species likes relatively warm temps - perhaps she was kept too cold, which started a cycle of not eating....

If you have someone to help you, force feeding a large newt like this can be very quick and relatively stress free. If you are lucky, she will eat something once it is in her mouth. If not, you may have to pulp up a worm or some fish and squirt it down the back of her mouth with a syringe attached to a piece of airline. A credit card or similar can be used to open the mouth. I have done this with great success in a Paramesotriton sp that was in a similar state. I force-fed the animal twice, which kick-started its appetite and immune system. It started feeding and then healed its sores quite quite quickly.

Good luck!

C

 

[firedreams]

Thanks everyone for your help! Sadly, she passed this morning around 10am. I can only conclude that she had been starved for some time and her body just wasn't strong enough to fight off the infection. May her next incarnation bring better fortunes...

 

[Niels D]

That's the down side of this hobby, we lose animals now and then. I'm keeping my juvies at room temperature btw. I haven't got experience with adult animals, because I've got mine from a couple of eggs which I got out of a trade. The breeder keeps his animals also a little bit warmer than we would normally do with most of our newts. Hope you'll get some nice healthy animals in the near future!

 

[froggy]

Sorry she didn't make it...looks like it was too late by the time you got her to do anything.

Re temps, there was a recent paper (Pimmachak et al.2012, discussed in another thread) with temp readings from the wild. Juvenile newts' microhabitat reach 29.6C during the day, while water temps measured around 25C! The data from this paper is syntehsised on the Habidata database, which is available here:Home - Habidata
in a google spreadhseet.

C