Marbles....pics!

i went into my usual pet store to get crickets the other day and i saw these in one tank, the clerk who knows me convinced me to take them because she was worried they wouldnt survive-apparently they have been at room temp+ for about 2 weeks and they already lost one, i got them on the contingency that if they survive i will pay for them at cost. right now i am doing batryl and cool therapy in a plastic shoe box in the fridge (no food) i believe there are 2 males and one female-i am not sure if the mottling i see on her legs and underside are the result of sickness or a normal pattern (ive never had these before, nor seen them upclose) they look of good weight so i think they will do fine....

here is a group shot

here is the females head/torso...is the mottling on the arms normal?

male/female

the smaller male has an ulcer on his tail base-but it doesnt look too far advanced

They are beautiful animals. I am glad that you got them Paris, at least they will have a chance now. Wishing you all great luck.

These opacum seem on the thin side in my opinion. I am curious why you have started them on Baytril? Have you taken them to a vet, were they prescribed this medication? Slender animals in a fridge without food and being treated with a (unprescribed?) medication that causes weight loss seems like a tragedy in writing to me.

i am operating from experience here, preventative treatment is one procedure we (my vet and i) have used in the past with good results, if you need a reference look back at the new tylo and hynobid imports i had last year, this is SOP

I understand that preventative treatment can be quite beneficial, getting ahead of the illness. However, with your Asian imports you did consult the vet, did you not? It seems to me this treatment could be overboard, using penicillin just because there is a fever. My arguments will probably have no effect on you, however, I would suggest at least trying to get some weight on them.

mark-i cannot see their hip bones protruding so it is my opinion they are of good enough weight to do the fridge for 10 days-its a time issue-i dont have time to bulk them up more, i fear the illness will overtake them first, i am going by what has worked in the past, if i stop now to feed them i cannot keep them at low temps w/o risking their digestion getting too slow, i have some options open and i am trying to do what i feel best-based on experience and choosing the best combination that i believe will work. one already has an ulcer and the others will be treated the same as him, you suggest i try to put weight on them, and i dont disagree, i just dont feel their weight is as bad as you do and am going for the faster solution of 7 more days in the fridge to help them beat their heat stress and lousy captive conditions (they were in 1" of water in a 1 gallon tank with only a food dish full of moss to hide in with 3 barking frogs and i believe a 'golden glider')
i dont disagree with alot you say but i have to make a decision and stick to it, and live with the results of my decisions

Good luck, Pairs. It's hard to know what the right call is in situations like these.

Paris, do you know if the pet store was offering them crickets? The lesion gives the appearence of that which is typical for crickets feeding on the salamanders.
I would suggest being careful with the baytril (enrofloxin) as it is potentially nephrotoxic and treating stressed animals is a risk.

Ed

yes they do feed crickets, i didnt see any at that time (drowned or otherwise)

batryl is the catch all for prevention, in the 6 years i have been going to her (after seeing other doctors who were not even able to keep my animals alive with their recommended treatments)the only time she has not recommended batryl (a 10% solution applied topically-at aprox 1 drop per inch of body length) was when i requested to try bactoderm (upon suggestion from another member), this didnt work as well so we switched back over. it is a catch all treatment i know but pragmatism does play a large role in veternary as well as psychiatric medicine....and POS providers ("you dont need to know what you are allergic to -just take antihistamines"-my former doctor) ...., she performs gram stains and we have never had the bad one (cant remember if its positive or negative), we know it can cause some damage and it becomes sensitive if we choose to do a second treatment after 4-7 days off of it, we had to do that for some of my hynobid imports from last year....

im willing to bet some serious money these are from 'strictly' stock and ive seen some seriously 'holey' specimens come in from that supplier, the longer they stay in their holding tanks the worse they get, there was a smooth sided toad that arrived last year (this is a species i want but there was no way i was going to buy it)it had large ulcers like the ones on that sals tail on its under belly and feet and nose-it lived for all of 3 days, i didnt feel there was anyway i could've treated that one and gotten positive results.

here are updated photos-they came out of the fridge about a week ago, but i just took pictures today.they have been eating well, preferring crickets over worm chunks, here is a group shot

here is a shot of the pale females belly, i have watched her shed so this IS her real colouration

here is a belly shot of a normal coloured one

and here is a shot of the ulcer on the tail of the one. it didnt improve while she was in the fridge, it took a week of out of fridge time (at 60F) for her to start healing-but the fridge time and batryl stopped the progress, its nearly healed now

Congrats Paris! I was wondering how they were faring- thanks for keeping us in the loop.

BTW, sorry about calling you "Pairs" in my post above. It was an honest typo mistake! YOU GOTTA BELIEVE ME!!!

glad to see it's getting better! that pale one is very unusual, but i prefer the normal black and white version.

[Andy Baker]

Thanks for the posts guys. I learned alot. In the past I have considered those open sores to be death sentences. Now I know there is hope for them if I ever see another.
I sometimes feed small crickets to my marbled. Should I not do this?

The trick to feeding crickets is to feed what they can eat in a single feeding. Don't put more than a few in at a time and pull out any that are left.
Mark