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Blind newt?

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amy

Guest
Hi! I keep many newts, but the ones I've had the longest are my chinese fire bellied newts. I noticed last night as I was watching my female feeding, that her eyes have gone weird. At first it looked like she had them tight shut, but then I could see that it was just that her eyes had gone sort of cloudy (not as cloudy as cataracts) and they look now as if the are the same colour/texture as the rest of her body and not shiny and jet black as they used to be. Is this a bacterial or fungal thing and if so can it be treated. She has not lost her appetite in any way and seem s as healthy and happy as normal in every other way, but I'd like to fix this if I can. Can anyone shed any light on this for me?
 
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amazon

Guest
well, i doubt newts NEED to see, if it is getting along fine and is happy and healthy, then i doubt you need to worry.
 
S

sarah

Guest
You may find this humorous, but they actually "shed skin". Whether or not this particular case is that, or if it affects their eyes or not, I am not sure. But their skin will seem a little funky for a day or two and so will their behavior. Just make sure that skin does not get tangled or wrapped tightly around extremities as they sometimes have difficulty removing it from these areas. My newts often have a "necklace" of skin that I gently rub until it loosens itself from their neck.
 
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amy

Guest
Just to let you all know that this 'disease' spread round all my newts and them suddenly disappeared leaving them all with normal eyes. Wierd... oh yeah, and it wasn't just her shedding her skin. I don't think they have skin on their eyes to shed!
 

Jennewt

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Amy, do you think it could be related to diet? I had a newt that got cloudy eyes, and I thought maybe it was because it had been fed with waxworms for a while. There is something called lipidosis, which is caused by a fatty diet and can cause cloudy eyes.
 
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