Advanced help/adviced needed- Shredded arms(again)

*amateurs- please do not respond*

Well, again I have some bad news to report. I had another attack in my axolotl tank. it was 3 seperate attacks on one axolotl in about 24-36 hours. 2 arms were compleatly dystroyed, left wrist broken, fleash removed. Right arm flesh removed down to the bone. My guess is that the majority of the dammage was done by the victim trying to pull away.

The guy is still eating and looks healthy, but his arms are nothing but flesh hanging off bone. I took the right arm off 2 days ago as the flesh was torn off sideways and at least 2 MM of bone was hanging out sideways.(see picture). The other arm has a broken wrist and shows no sign of healing, but I am hesitate to operate on that limb seeing as though the other arm is not yet growing back over the bone.

I am treating the hospital container with melafix and salt. Is the any professional advice of what else I can do?

Give him 48 hours or so to regain some blood and then chop the shredded arm as far up as is necessary to make a clean cut. Good luck.

As the lines between expert and imbecile are fuzzy I am responding. Any idea what the cause of this incident was. Underfeeding, crowding, etc. Aggressive feeding is one thing but this seems excessive.

I've cut arms/legs off like that a few times with various species for various reasons...majority of the time the animal wont even flinch. But of course, make sure the scissors are really sharp so as to make a nice clean cut. After cutting, personally i use colistin sulphate to keep any infection at bay. It's a broad spectrum anti biotic used in the treatment of pretty much all gram negative bacteria. I doubt you can get that in the states, though i'm sure you guys have an equivelent. I know a fair few people that have good results with baytril when treating open sores/wounds etc.
All that said though, it's worth mentioning that often a healthy animal can surprise you by recovering itself without treatments like those i mention....in the meantime all you can do is keep an eye on it.

I think Jeff's doing all he needs to keep the bacteria levels down. Simply cutting the arm should be sufficient but yes use a sharp tool - I have used my pair of medical/dissection scissors from when I was an undergraduate student.

Oh, and do wait, like I said, at least 48 hours after the initial injury - bleeding stops pretty quickly for axolotls but if it has bled several times in a short period of time they can die from that alone.

Yeah i think it'll be fine without the antibiotics. A healthy animal that aquires an injury never ceases to amaze me with how well they heal. The problems only really start when the animal is a recent import and is suffering from immuno suppression or such.

Thanks John and Andy,

Its truly amazing how tough these guys are. They seem oblivious to such extensive injuries. I am keeping a close watch and stepping up the feeding schedual. I will probably go ahead and take the other arm off tomarrow night. I may have not taken enough off in the first amputation, I didn't see much blood at all, but I will give it a few days and see if it grows over. I have been using an x-acto knife with a brand new sterilized blade, and in the future I would like to have something that is easier.

Andy- I have had a lot of success with a solution of melafix(tea tree oil) and salt. A sterile container with a low concentration of both has been very usefull for all my procedures in the past.

Hi Jeff,
I was just noticing from your previous posts and the (again) that you have in your title that these kinds of problems are frequent for you. From my experience this doesn't seem to be normal axolotl behavior. Is it possible that you are under feeding them or that they are over crowded? Since this is not a one time occurance, I think it would be a good idea for you to check into what kind of factors are causing your axolotls to be this viscious.

That was my thought as above but you said it rather more eloquently.

Jeff,
How old are the axolotls in question?

I have group of 15 axolotls are 3 years old, and haven't been gotten bite related injuries since they were about 7 months old. Are you positive you're feeding them enough? Crowding isn't as big of an issue with adults as it is with larvae/juveniles as long as the water is changed regularly.

If it happens on numerous occasions, perhaps it'd be best to separate the two.

As for the wounds they've received, take John's advice. I've seen some pretty nasty wounds heal in little time at all, but then others can get out of hand if left untreated, but you've obviously already taken precautions to prevent infection.

Melafix is related to turpentine and might not be the best choice of an axolotl treatment. See this link: http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/illness.shtml

Good luck with the wounded ones.

I will admit that the cause of the aggressive behavior is most likely underfeeding. They are all of healthy weight but unfortounatly they have other ideas of how much food they require. I also think that the java moss has grown to the point where it is just taking up too much space and causing visual distortion when feeding, somehow they attempt to bite through it. Anyhow, I am trying to make sure they all get more to eat, I do feel bad when stuff like this happens.

Oh, and as for the melafix- I would rather use a low concentration of it then some of the other man-made chemicals. Its pretty strong undiluted, so make sure you do the math right, but so far I have never had a nagative result with it, neither have some other people I know that have used it on a variety of amphibians. I do believe that salt, (I use instant ocean) is probably the best additive to avoid bacteria infection. A low level for the treatment tank, and if nessecary, 20 minute baths in a much higher solution 2 times per day.