Auditor12
New member
Hey All,
First time post, long time lurker. What I have is a wild-caught Tiger from Eastern Washington, been living happy and healthy in captivity for about 3.5 years now. Based on advice from a local herp biologist, I've just kept him on a paper towel substrate the entire time. He eats portions of nightcrawlers powdered with calcium, no heat control and no artificial light. He has a water dish that he occasionally lays in and a nice artificial log hide. Like I said, he's been happy and healthy all this time, until recently.
About 6 weeks ago I noticed a sore on his chest right between his front legs, where the skin was rubbed raw. This wasn't an abscess or oozing anything. My guess is that it was due to a change in paper towels to a brand with a rougher texture to them. We stopped using those paper towels right away. The sore has mostly healed by me flipping the tank upside down and allowing him to keep his water dish, but no paper towels and he just hangs out on the tank lid ( with moist paper towels underneath, but not touching him ) and a few other smooth surfaced reptile terrain furniture I had. I make sure he stays drier than he was and that seems to be helping the sore to heal up ( I've also been applying non-pain killer Neosporin to the wound daily). I did all this because I wanted him to not be rubbing on the moist paper towels and I read that a change in environment can help with infections. The issue that I can't seem to fix is this weird shedding he's been doing since the sore appeared. It's like he's shedding on only certain parts of his body, one day it's his legs, another it will be his head, and it's sloughing off in these pathetic little slimy patches, NOT like a normal full body shed. I assume it's some type of skin infection, but I'm not sure how to treat it. He's also just randomly lost 2 of his toe tips on one of his feet. He still eats, but he's just not as active and vital as he used to be. Thanks for reading my post and any advice that can be offered.
Ps: I should mentioned that the temps normally hover in the 68-73 range, but about the time he got the sore, we had a heat wave and the house got up in to the high 70's (F) before we got the A/C up and running. I've read that heat shocks like this can be devastating, so I thought it should be mentioned.
Thanks!
First time post, long time lurker. What I have is a wild-caught Tiger from Eastern Washington, been living happy and healthy in captivity for about 3.5 years now. Based on advice from a local herp biologist, I've just kept him on a paper towel substrate the entire time. He eats portions of nightcrawlers powdered with calcium, no heat control and no artificial light. He has a water dish that he occasionally lays in and a nice artificial log hide. Like I said, he's been happy and healthy all this time, until recently.
About 6 weeks ago I noticed a sore on his chest right between his front legs, where the skin was rubbed raw. This wasn't an abscess or oozing anything. My guess is that it was due to a change in paper towels to a brand with a rougher texture to them. We stopped using those paper towels right away. The sore has mostly healed by me flipping the tank upside down and allowing him to keep his water dish, but no paper towels and he just hangs out on the tank lid ( with moist paper towels underneath, but not touching him ) and a few other smooth surfaced reptile terrain furniture I had. I make sure he stays drier than he was and that seems to be helping the sore to heal up ( I've also been applying non-pain killer Neosporin to the wound daily). I did all this because I wanted him to not be rubbing on the moist paper towels and I read that a change in environment can help with infections. The issue that I can't seem to fix is this weird shedding he's been doing since the sore appeared. It's like he's shedding on only certain parts of his body, one day it's his legs, another it will be his head, and it's sloughing off in these pathetic little slimy patches, NOT like a normal full body shed. I assume it's some type of skin infection, but I'm not sure how to treat it. He's also just randomly lost 2 of his toe tips on one of his feet. He still eats, but he's just not as active and vital as he used to be. Thanks for reading my post and any advice that can be offered.
Ps: I should mentioned that the temps normally hover in the 68-73 range, but about the time he got the sore, we had a heat wave and the house got up in to the high 70's (F) before we got the A/C up and running. I've read that heat shocks like this can be devastating, so I thought it should be mentioned.
Thanks!
