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Sickness- CFB efts

ciara

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Hi,

So I have 27 CFB efts, some from last year and some from the year before. I have been raising them terrestrially on damp kitchen roll with access to a water area- however none seem properly interested yet. I've been feeding them springtails and white worms mainly.

Recently 2 of the efts have had something wrong with them, the others are fine.

They have both got swollen bellies, the smaller one has got a swollen upper half as well.

They both struggle to walk (almost like when they're molting and try to get the skin off when it's around their legs by dragging themselves) the top half/ legs are fine, but their bottom halves are not normal, their tails curl up and they wriggle them constantly, and their hind legs seem to get stuck to the side of their tail and they drag them mainly, it's almost like their legs are paralysed, but they can move them and feel them they just dont.

I took videos, but cant upload them unfortunately. I thought they had some food stuck in their digestive tract or needed to lose some weight.

I'm really worried about them.
Has anyone experienced anything like this?

I've looked through the articles and I've read about bloat, I'm not sure if it's bloat of not, their legs aren't swollen or anything just their bellies.

Any help would be appreciated, I don't like to see them struggle like this and I'm not really sure what to do/ if they are in pain.

One of the photos shows a healthy newt beside one of them just for comparrison
 

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Otterwoman

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With bloat, they are completely swollen all over.
WIth a large group of efts, you don't have the natural selection you'd get in the wild and it's normal to lose some -- sorry.
However, they may just have an immature digestive system and may survive just fine. there's nothing really you can do except make sure they have small things to eat so they don't have to overload their system with a big worm chunk.
 

ciara

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Hi, thanks again for getting back to me.

Symptoms are the same as in this thread:
https://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=78715

I had fed them lesser waxmoth larvae as I couldn't get hold of any white worms for a couple of weeks, although I got them back onto white worms as soon as I could.

I think it's probably the same problem which was what I'd suspected to begin with.

Do you think putting them in the fridge would help at all or was it just a coincidence for the girl in the other thread?

Thanks again
 

Otterwoman

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Wow, I missed that thread.
I had a sal with constipation and the doc suggested dipping the worm in olive oil. Maybe cut up a night crawler and dip a piece in olive oil and hand feed them and it'll pass whatever it has stuck in there. WHen I have a bad experience with a food , I never use it again.
 

ciara

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Yeah I was thinking of trying olive oil. The fridge/ slowing metabolism doesn't really make sense to me if they're constipated. Yeah, safe to say I will never feed lesser waxmoth larvae again. I didn't even really feel ok with doing it in the first place due to the high fat content, but wasn't sure when I'd be able to get hold of better food again/ in decent quantities to feed 27 of them. Thankfully I've got some now. Is extra virgin olive oil ok? Might try white worms in olive oil and see if that helps just don't want to make them even more bunged up. Fingers crossed!
 
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