Trauma or flesh-eating?

[vistajpdf]

Hi all,

Sorry to be MIA lately, but lots of personal tragedies happening in our lives (deaths of 2 family members.)

One of my fully grown C. orientalis babies was in the 10 gallon tank with his/her mother, only. So 2 adult newts in a 10 gallon.

I've posted problems on this issue awhile ago but no one had any input. When it's feeding time, a leg of a tankmate is almost always mistaken for a worm and the biting newt goes into an alligator-like death spiral, twirling the other newt in the process. I've only had to separate an injured newt once. The injuries are minor in general. Now, this one that was with the mother has the front leg barely usuable, hanging by a thread. It has a large area of white (hoping fibrin clot from the trauma and not flesh-eating) around the area that would be the shoulder and where the arm connects. The arm has atrophied.

I've isolated this newt. Is there anything else I can do? (Can't post pics...) Salt bath? Amputate?

Dana

 

[Azhael]

Sorry to hear about your situation.
I would amputate with a very sharp, sterile razor, just above the wound. This is best done by a vet, mind you.
I had the same thing happen to me with a L.vulgaris and after amputating the entire leg, the wound healed fast and well. Now, the leg is not fully formed but it´s almost there and fully functional. The initial stages of healing look rather worrying because they do look like a sore, but as long as there´s no fungal growth, the wound will look better each day.
You can try to avoid this kind of aggression by feeding the female first with tweezers. These are not aggressive newts but they do become frenzied when they smell food.

 

[vistajpdf]

Hello again, old friend. I have sterile scalpels at my office and wouldn't be uncomfortable doing it myself if I knew what to do about pain control. Also, the tear has extended up onto the body a little, so I don't think it can be completely removed. If the sore was limited to the arm itself, I could more easily amputate, taking all affected areas with it. However...it's like the arm was ripped and skin torn from the area all around the attachment.

Unfortunately, my exotic vet here seems to get more information from me than to me. So, I hesitate to call her in. I was thinking that the arm could likely just fall off on its own and some chilling may help reduce the risk of opportunistic infections? The arm itself is probably necrotic and possibly all nerve endings are dead, so I could remove it easily...just not sure how to treat the skinned area (white) all around where the arm attaches.

Any further thoughts? Thanks for your sympathy, in put.
Dana