Twisted and red limb

I've had an axolotl that's been refusing food for a few days now. I finally managed to get him to eat a juicy earthworm yesterday. Today however I noticed his left limb is twisted backwards. The limb also has red marks, it looks like blood (I'm not too sure) and on the bottom white marks.

Also worth mentioning is that He does not use this limb at all. What could it be? Any suggestions to fix this? This was the best photo shot I managed to Get of the injury.

Here's the photo.

It looks lise it got caught by something.

Is there anything in your tank that it might get caught on.. or may treat to eat it?

That looks like a broken leg, and it appears to have a wound on it as well. For treating the wound, I'd suggest some tea baths. Also be on the lookout for fungus, it likes to grow on wounds.

I'd also like to say that your axolotl looks rather thin. And it can't be from no feeding a few days... how often do you feed him? And how much?

Yeah he shares the tank with one other axolotl... I'm thinking maybe it might be from that. I noticed they bumped into each other once or twice accidently, maybe the leg got bit? I can notice what i beleive to be a little bit of fungus on the other side of the red marks (not visible in the photo). It just seems to be like little white skin flakes on the leg.

I've had him for nearly two weeks and I've had trouble feeding him ever since I got him. Just yesterday though I had seem to find the answer with Earthworms but today I noticed this injury on him and he would try to eat but spit out the worm the moment it would wiggle around. Yesterday I fed him two whole earthworms (both of them were pretty decent size) and before that he would only take one meal worm every 2 or 3 days. I couldn't get him to feed on anything else.

I'm willing to bet thats the cause.

If it's a broken leg what should I do? Will it heal on it's own or is there something I need to be doing. At the moment he's chilling out in the fridge.

Fridging is a good start. If theres a fungus, salt baths, and maybe tea baths to help the skin.

Have you tried cutting the earthworms up? Perhaps whole ones are too large for him.

take him to an exotic vet. David Vella's meant to be really good if you live in my part of sydney. http://www.davidvella.com.au/Axolotls_dvella.pdf but your axie is insanely skinny and he's going to want to eat even less with a slow metabolism from being in the fridge. A full stomach would help that leg repair.

Hi Steve,

Good to hear he finally ate some worms for you. As Snuggly time said, if he's refusing them now, try chopping them smaller for him (width of his head or smaller) and persevere. I still have to chop them for my two Axies and they are 6 & 8" in length, they just can't seem to handle full worms.

With his poor little leg, I agree with everyone else.

I would probably look at putting a temporary divider in your tank to stop attacks from your other Axie, keep the water clean and cool and it should heal itself. The white flakes might just be dead skin from the wound, fungus is more "cotton woolly" looking. You could look at tea baths to soothe the skin but fridging is going to slow his metabolism and he might stop eating again.

Good luck and keep us posted ...... :happy:

That looks like a nommed foot.

Personally I wouldn't fridge him - put him into a tub with a lid & good fresh clean dechlorinated water + a sponge filter if you have one on low. Change the water every second day & add an almond leaf or a cup of black tea as described here


Keeping I him in a cool dark place covered with a towel if needed will give him some time to chill out without being so cold as to slow down his appetite. That way you can feed him up while he's in the hospital tank & fatten him up.

I have plenty of almond leaves if you want a couple (they last for ages - reuse) & I got 1kg of live blackworms yesterday (minnie took quite a few) but there's plenty left if you want the ultimate axie temptation j
ust let me know - I'm home all weekend.





<3 >o_o< <3

Sorry for the super late reply, Uni has been restricting my free time lately. Luckily enough, the twisted limb looks pretty normal now. Seems to have healed all on it's own after about a week of being alone in a seperate tank. It's inside my cupboard so It's relatively cool in there and also pretty dark. Not sure if that helped speed up the healing process but definitely seems to have kept his stress levels to a minimum. I think i might leave him in his temporary tank with regular water changes every 3 days, just until I can fatten him up a little bit as I don't want his leg to get mistaken as excess food in the other tank again.

Also mention-worthy, he's noticeably fatter and has been eating about 2-3 earthworms a day, with the occasional meal worm snack. Cutting up earthworms was a great idea, I only had to do it 3 or 4 times and now he can take any worm no matter the size. The white stuff on his leg went away immediately after one salt bath and I gave him another two after that just to be on the safe side.

Only thing now i'm curious about is the frequency Axolotls poop... Not sure how often Axolotls poop and if it's different for different axolotls, but the one with a twisted limb that wasn't eating much but now eats, hasn't pooped since i put him in the sick tank a week ago. My other one poops usually every second day. Is this normal? He pooped like 3-4 times in one day when I fridged him.

Thanks for all the suggestions and help guys, much appreciated.

Fridging / cooler temps help them to void their bowels .... Not sure how it works but that is one way to treat constipation and especially useful for gravel impaction.

Each Axie is different when it comes to poop - I have one that poops every 2 days and another that goes once a week. Also depends on diet, some foods cause more powdery / dusty poops which you may not even see if they float off throughout the tank. Worms tend to produce more solid poops and mealworms - often you'll see the mealworm's exoskeleton floating on top of the water as it can't be digested.

Hope this helps