Illness/Sickness: Tiger Salamander sick

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Doubleduty

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Hi I'm new. My name is Karen (am an adult...older than I want to admit..lol) and I have a sick Tiger Salamander. Blacky has been listless and hiding. He was eating his crickets but yesterday it took all effort for him just to eat one...he wasn't really interested and was letting it crawl all over him and on his face. He is walking strangely like one leg or one side of him is a little draggy or doesn't bend as well or something. He just sits and curls himself up all day under his coconut shell. Then after he is all curled up and I try to get him out he is kind of bent-like for awhile before he straightens out. He is with other salamanders in dirt. I get the dirt from about the same area in the yard when I clean the box out. I don't have that coconut substrate...never have. I just make their habitat like the window well where they were rescued from drowning in a downpour we had here.


I change their water almost everyday. I feed them crickets--one everyday (I put them individually in a plastic container so that I make sure they each get food and then I stick them back in their rubbermaid container. Blacky has never grown since last summer and the others are smaller sized--they are no longer than my hand from finger end to bottom of my palm...Blacky is shorter than that. I had been feeding him a lot more than usual the past week because I thought maybe he wasn't getting enough to eat so he looks a little rounder but I don't know if that is bloaty or just fatty. The other salamanders look real healthy, but so did Blacky--he was the most active and friendly and now the opposite. I looked all over him as best as I could and I could not see any scratches or cuts or anything abnormal. Any ideas? Its awful to say but we can't afford to spend money on him at the vets. I would let them go back into the wild but I was thinking that we have spoiled them too badly for the past year that they would die with the change of temperature and not find food as easy??? If it would be better to put them in the wild I would do that because I don't want to harm them if I am not taking care of them good enough.:( I hope someone can give me some advice. I don't think Blacky can go on for longer and I don't want him to suffer.
Karen
 
Karen,

first thing you do not want to do is release them in the wild, once an animal has been captive it can introduce pathogens back to the wild population which can be very bad.

You do not need to use coco fiber as a substrate, plain dirt is fine as long as there is no pesticide in it. I use a 50/50 mix of organic top soil and coco fiber because I find it retains moisture pretty good.

As far as food, crickets are not the most nutritious even if you gut load and dust them. The best thing you can feed your tigers is earthworms, they are easy to get and they love the wriggly-ness. I feed mine one nightcrawler per salamander every other day, given they want it. Sometimes, mostly during the summer, when it gets warmer they will hide more to keep cool which means they won't necessarily be hungry as often.

I change the water dish every other day and mist the tank everyday. Once a week I get the substrate really moist by pouring a quart of water and tilling it. I do a complete substrate change once a year.

I hope this helps.
 
madeve said:
Karen,

first thing you do not want to do is release them in the wild, once an animal has been captive it can introduce pathogens back to the wild population which can be very bad.

You do not need to use coco fiber as a substrate, plain dirt is fine as long as there is no pesticide in it. I use a 50/50 mix of organic top soil and coco fiber because I find it retains moisture pretty good.

As far as food, crickets are not the most nutritious even if you gut load and dust them. The best thing you can feed your tigers is earthworms, they are easy to get and they love the wriggly-ness. I feed mine one nightcrawler per salamander every other day, given they want it. Sometimes, mostly during the summer, when it gets warmer they will hide more to keep cool which means they won't necessarily be hungry as often.

I change the water dish every other day and mist the tank everyday. Once a week I get the substrate really moist by pouring a quart of water and tilling it. I do a complete substrate change once a year.

I hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Thanks Eve...I will go and get some worms. My Tigers are so small it seems like they would choke on them...and I just need to get over the queaziness of feeding worms. Are meal worms good enough? I think I could do that a little easier....ick...LOL I wonder if Blacky swallowed a little rock or something? Would he start bloating up really bad real quick if he did? Is there anything you can do if he is impacted or blocked?
 
Karen,

Mealworms aren't the best nutritionally either. Worms are really the best and believe me a little salamander can fit a long wriggly worm in quite easily. If you think a worm is too big you can always chop them up (sorry if that makes the queasiness worse), as long as it wriggles the tigers will go for it.
Another thing you can try is waxworms but do so in moderation because they are very fatty. I have yet to hear of a tiger that will turn down waxworms. If anything that will get blacky eating and then you can work him into earthworms, but I highly doubt he will turn a good wriggly worm away.

If he did swallow a rock, he should be able to pass it if it is really small, you can always isolate him in a separate container and keep him on moist unbleached paper towels. That way if he passes rocks you'll be able to know. A good way to avoid impaction would be to keep all rock smaller than the size of the tigers heads out of their tank.
 
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:sick: eeeyuuck! What we do for love. I'm headed to Petsmart! LOL yuck yuck yuck! I hope he gets better. Thanks again so much, Eve and I will keep you posted.
 
Are pan worms okay? I think that is what the guy called them. They are not as thick as earthworms, but are skinnier. The guy said its the same kind of worm you see that comes out on the driveway when it rains. Walmart has them but Petsmart out here said they were all out of every worm there was :(
 
Yes, pan trout worms are fine to use. I once bought some when wal-mart was out of nightcrawlers and they were well received by my tigers, I just had to feed a few extras to make up for their small size. Give the pan trout worm a try, you may not need to chop them up since they are smaller. ;)

My tigers are fairly large, one is 10" and the other is 8" and they have an appetite to match, they will gobble a whole nightcrawler in a pinch.

Good luck with the feeding and let us know how it goes.
 
Eve it was horrible...terrible. I cannot do this at all.:sad: I tested one out on one of my largest tigers and I swear we thought we had killed "Spot". It took him awhile to swallow it and I was half tempted to pull the whole thing out of his mouth. Then after he finally swallowed it, then he made all these bends and convulsive type of move with dragging his head on the ground and curling up. My boys were crying. I was almost too. I hope he will be okay. He is acting normal now. I know my boys won't be able to cut up the worms and I for sure just cannot bring myself to do that. Blacky is just listless. He doesn't even look like he will make it another day :sad: But I know he won't be able to eat one of these.

Are salamander pellets worthless? Do they give them enough vitamins and nutrition plus crickets? Spot likes those pellets and crickets. I am seriously considering if we can't give them the nutrition they need a.k.a.--WORMS... to see if there are any people in our area who will take care of them much better than we can. We are wimps! But I can't take that again...my stomach is in knots. But if we could keep just one--Spot with crickets and suppliments, but if not then I just want them to be healthy. They are I would say 6 inches is the biggest of my salamanders. Thanks for hearing all my bellering!! I'm sorry.
 
I believe what you saw when he was dragging his head was him trying to remove the dirt from his mouth that he got in there while eating the worm.

The worms are really you best option as a food item, trust me it gets easier everytime you do it. However crickets will suffice as long as you dust them with calcium and vitamins once a week. As for the pellets, if you can get it to eat it then by all means go for it.
 
Try the pan worms again. They're a lot smaller than nightcrawlers, and you don't have to cut them up. In general, you can feed a chunk of worm that's 1/2 the salamander's body length, longer if it's a thin worm.

And tigers will thrash, and wiggle, and fling their head about. Perfectly normal. Sometimes, if two get each end of a worm, they'll go into the alligator death roll. After they get used to the worms, you'll note that sometimes they'll shake it like a bull dog.

Additionally, mealworms and crickets have mouth-parts, which mean they can bite your salamander (this can sometimes lead to infection!). Worms do not. They're soft, nutritionally complete, a completely natural food, and easy to obtain (and they smell better and make less noise than crickets).

Keep with it. It's really not that bad. I swear. I was squeamish at first. But use a sharp knife or razor blade, and do it on a paper plate (keeps things from sliding around). They usually don't bleed, and there have been studies that show they do not feel pain.
 
Well, I actually cleaned off the worm of all the dirt before feeding it to him (poured water on it and then dried him with a napkin) He just looked like he was in pain for awhile there. I figured it was like us trying to swallow a ten foot hotdog! There is just one, Spot, who will eat those pellets. He must have extra sensory smell or something because he can tell if I put one in the cage really quick and you can see him searching and smelling for each pellet.

Do you get that vitamin and calcium dusting from the store like Petsmart or do you have to do it yourself like crush them? I know I can't go through this again, it was very traumatic! And I cannot slice worms and I know my boys won't be able to either, so that is my only hope. I don't want them to die of malnutrition. I'm not sure that is what Blacky is dying of or if he has swallowed a rock or something :(
 
You can get the supplements at any Petsmart or any pet store really. The brands I use are Rep-cal calcium and Herptivite vitamins. Just sprinkle a little bit of each supplement into a plastic bag, insert crickets, shake to coat the crickets, then all that is left to do is feed them to the tigers.
 
I'm sorry it was such a bad experience for you ... I hope you find a good solution that works for you. Just to be sure, here is a link to a thread I posted with a video of my big tiger salamander chowing down a worm ... I'm not trying to gross you out, just show you what it should look like when they eat so you can compare.
 
Definitely watch Eve's video. It is perfectly normal for a salamander to wiggle all around while it's trying to eat a worm. That's how it swallows it. Alot of animals do it-my turtle shakes his head when he eats worms and uses his claws to get the dirt off of his mouth. They are not in any pain at all. They probably even enjoy it.
 
Doubleduty said:
Hi I'm new. My name is Karen (am an adult...older than I want to admit..lol) and I have a sick Tiger Salamander. Blacky has been listless and hiding. He was eating his crickets but yesterday it took all effort for him just to eat one...he wasn't really interested and was letting it crawl all over him and on his face. He is walking strangely like one leg or one side of him is a little draggy or doesn't bend as well or something. He just sits and curls himself up all day under his coconut shell. Then after he is all curled up and I try to get him out he is kind of bent-like for awhile before he straightens out. He is with other salamanders in dirt. I get the dirt from about the same area in the yard when I clean the box out. I don't have that coconut substrate...never have. I just make their habitat like the window well where they were rescued from drowning in a downpour we had here.


I change their water almost everyday. I feed them crickets--one everyday (I put them individually in a plastic container so that I make sure they each get food and then I stick them back in their rubbermaid container. Blacky has never grown since last summer and the others are smaller sized--they are no longer than my hand from finger end to bottom of my palm...Blacky is shorter than that. I had been feeding him a lot more than usual the past week because I thought maybe he wasn't getting enough to eat so he looks a little rounder but I don't know if that is bloaty or just fatty. The other salamanders look real healthy, but so did Blacky--he was the most active and friendly and now the opposite. I looked all over him as best as I could and I could not see any scratches or cuts or anything abnormal. Any ideas? Its awful to say but we can't afford to spend money on him at the vets. FONT]
Karen
Click to expand...

Karen
Just a couple of thoughts.
1. In that Blacky is dragging his leg and has trouble 'uncurling' there is a potential that he has metabolic bone disease - this could only be definitively diagnosed with a visit to a vet, radiography, etc. I would start using a powdered calcium supplement with vitD3 (without phosphate) and a multivitamin powder as Justin suggested. Dust the crickets directly before feeding. If it is MBD, this would not necessarily repair the damage but may help to prevent further decline. Please see this chart, it shows why nightcrawlers, etc are the perfect natural food - notice the calcium to phosphorus ratio:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/foods2.shtml

2. In that you have been feeding him 'a lot more than usual' I would not be overly concerned that he has ignored the crickets and appears not to be interested. This could also be a reason why he has recently plumped up.

3. As someone suggested - remove any stones from your set-up that are small enough to ingest. If he has eaten a stone, it may or may not pass depending on its size.

4. If you cannot do the earthworm thing, consider using Phoenix worms. They are more like the size of a small mealworm but have the perfect calcium to phosphorus ratio. They are fattier, but you can moderate intake and alternate with dusted crickets.
 
Thank you Eve,Oregon, Great, Kaysie and Jan...I'll go and get that powder today. Blacky ate two crickets today. That can't be bad news, right? I put him temporarily this morning in a plastic bucket so I could watch him. He starts walking around trying probably to get out, so it was good to see him move. He didn't move one ioda last night and was all curled up. Then I took him out and put a couple of crickets and he ate them right away.

I could watch part of that video but the rest cut off on my computer for some reason but that really helped, Eve. I'll go buy some of those smaller worms. I was just afraid it was too big for him. Us inexperienced and wimpy owners I know is most of the problem...but to have two boys bawling was just a bit too much for this mom! I hope Petsmart has those Phoenix worms...if not I'll do everything to get a hold of some. I'll get some wax worms (if they are not too long) today too.

Thanks for sticking with me on all this. You guys are the best! I will send a URL or link to a Youtube of Blacky walking this morning. Maybe by seeing him you can notice anything else. He is usually not this straight or active at all in his normal housing like this. His one leg seems like its hard for him to bend right because when he walks its usually stretched out instead of walking like the slow, pick leg, bend and forward. YouTube - Blacky
 
oops I didn't mean to put the whole youtube video directly on that post. I thought just the url would show up. I don't know if you are suppose to post videos like that directly in the post but I don't know how to edit it out. Sorry.
 
Karen,

the video was great and it's OK to embed a video in a post. He seems to be doing great and looks like he could use a little bit more plumping up ... maybe it's because I'm used to my tigers and they are pretty plump.

I'm glad to hear that he ate some crickets. I've never seen phoenix worms anywhere but with the internet you can probably find some somewhere. As far as waxworms they are very short worms, I'd say about an inch or so, those get gobbled down rather quickly by tigers, no wiggling or writhing involved. Don't be surprised if your tigers become little beggars after such a treat ... mine are bad about it and will put their front legs up against the glass of the tank when someone walks by in the evening when they are out.

Good luck and keep us posted.
 
Re: Tiger Salamander sick--Update..coloring is changing...not good

I noticed that the coloring I think is changed on him. He has a more translucent light brownish redish between his hind legs (anus area?) before the base of his tail underside. His back thighs seems to be starting that coloring too?? Poor Blacky, I have no idea what to do for him. Tonight he ate two more crickets and I powdered them with Rep-Cal. He stays in the same position all day and only moves when I put him in the plastic bucket. But those translucent brown/red areas I really don't think he had those before. I hope I am not running out of time. I bought wax worms tonight but not going to do those until tomorrow. He seems soooo weak though and his back legs don't seem to work properly...more like he is shoving his legs in the back to move instead of crawling...I know its not right. Anyone have any idea about the coloring?
Karen
 
Good news that I'm able to feed those wax worms!! I didn't have to cut any up and the salamanders like them and I can feed the worms (hopefully this is okay) half conscious because of the cold they are in. Should I dust the worms too with the calcium powder or just leave that to the crickets when I feed them crickets?

Oh and I don't know about the coloring now of Blacky because one of the others have some of the same coloring on the bottom but just not as much...so?
 
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