B
benjamin
Guest
Well this morning I was walking my dog and I stumbled across a newt writhing in the road. I picked it up and found it to be a female smooth newt. The animal was not in very good shape and it vunerable to birds, cars, bikes, horses, and cats, I decided to get it to a safe location. Apon close investigation I found that the newt's upper jaw had been pushed back and the teeth had been forced through the flesh on the bottom of its mouth leaving a crescent shaped gash on the bottom of the newts head. I presume the injury was probably caused by a car running over the tip of the newt's nose. When I found the newt this was still slightly bleeding but the jaw had already returned to its normal position, now the wound apears to have healed. Though it has shown some signs of improvement there are still several things which are quite worrisome, such as her constant writhing, contorting her body into strange positions, inabillity to move in an organised fashion, and a constant moving of her eyeballs (in and out of their sockets as if she were swallowing something). I don't know whether to associate these behaviours with a state of shock or brain damage or even the bodies way of recovering from such an injury. I will soon have pictures to accompany my descriptions. I was wondering if the newt could have brain damage, how I can help improve its condition (it seems pretty fat so might be able to go a while with out food) if possible, and to get it to eat and start behaving normally. Normally I would have euthanised, or left to die an animal in this state on the spot, but after hearing of newts making recoveries from amazing injuries (such as hook wounds through the brain), I thought I'ld give this one a chance.
