HELP Broken Limb?

So it appears that one of my axies managed to get one of his front limbs is twisted onto his back next to his gills. He started swimming crazy all of a sudden...swimming rapidly to the top of the water and then jumping above the water. I looked at him and his limb was totally twisted backward. It appeared as though he was trying to make his leg go forward again. I gently nudged his limb and now its not twisted back but it looks very injured. He has trouble moving around now.
Anyone heard of anything like this or know what to do?

Poor guy...he's the one whos also missing toes and and that happens to be on the same side of his body. I guess he's going to be swimming lop-sided.

Hi Brella,

My goodness, you have been thrown head first into the world of axolotls.

I hope this thread helps for an accident prone axolotl: http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=54078&highlight=broken

Cheers Jacq.

Hi Brella,

Yes. My oldest Hendrix has the same thing. I have no idea how it happened but about 5 months ago I came back from a trip to find his right front leg lying flat against his body and not moving. I monitored it for a week and it appeared to still be a healthy limb. I thought it looked a like an anterior dislocation so I decided to have a go at rotating it to see if it would pop back in.

To my surprise it did. However the following day it was dislocated again. Now I just leave it. It seems very prone to dislocation and over the period of a full day it may pop in and out up to 5 times. most of the time it lies flat against his body.

It does not appear to cause him any stress or pain and apart from now having a slightly wobbly swimming style doesn't get in the way of any of the things Hendrix did before this.

So my advice is keep an eye on the limb watching blood flow and colouration if it all looks good then don't worry.

Good Luck

I thought the limb was healing but just now, my axolotls started swimming crazy around his tank again. His limb is appears to be twisted backward along his body again. After freaking out, he started floating and being lethargic.
Is there anything I can do for him?!?

Hi Brella,

The swimming style will be a bit crazy with only one front limb working. If the limb is healthy then I would leave it your axolotl will learn to live with it fairly quickly

I don't know if I explained the "crazy swimming" correctly. It seemed as if he was swimming like that in order to get his limb from being stuck. Like he was trying to get it back to the normal position.
How do I know if the limb is "healthy"?

Oh my... by healthy we basically mean intact. Does the blood supply appear to be passing through the affected limb? If there's no blood, the limb will begin to decay and die off.

So my axolotls limb is still really messed up. His front limb keeps getting pinned back. Everyday I notice him start swimming crazy to try and get his limb to face forward again. After he tries to get it unstuck he just floats probably because this situation has caused him stress.
Is there anything I can do for him????

Hi brella,

I had a couple of little Axies with broken or dislocated limbs - I know it's distrubing to look at, but I left them (in their own tub, with plenty of room) and they made a full recovery, although it did take a while.

Hope this helps. Cheers, Phil