Was gone for a week, most of my babies have missing limbs...

I had an emergency that took me out of town for a week. Had family watch my axolotls, but when I came back, there are many missing limbs. I think they weren't fed enough, and got real snappy.

I know they will regrow, but how long would it take? They are all at 3 months now, I was starting to rehome them last week, before having to take off. Would I now need to let them regrow, or will good owners still take them on?

Knowing I wasn't going to make my costs recouped anyway, I was going to sell them for around $10-15 each. Anyone think I can still get $10? Its not really about the money, but I need to rehome 21 of them, and I certainly spent well over $200 on them from egg to now, but I also want to make sure they can go to good homes...

Any advice is certainly welcome. This just turned into a big nightmare for me...they were all doing real well in the limb department up until this last week.

It depends on the axolotl. I think that for younger axolotls they regrow faster because they have less to grow back. Probably another month or two to fully heal but again it all depends. You can try for 10 but you should mention their lack of limbs currently. I'd focus more on finding good homes.

Ouch.

Much depends on whether you want to nurse them back to health or whether you really need to sell them. Accidents happen, but I'm not sure I'd want to sell babies with missing limbs - I certainly won't buy one because I'd assume (wrongly in your case) they were kept in bad conditions. Missing toes, tail and gill nips not so much of a problem though. Maybe wait until there is progress in recovery? I would advertise them at normal price, you can always discount them later if needed.

And you know you'll never get rich breeding axies right? Maybe cover your costs at best....

Yea, once I was spooling up with the eggs, I knew this won't be worth quitting my day job.

usafaux2004 said:

Yea, once I was spooling up with the eggs, I knew this won't be worth quitting my day job.

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Just an update. None of the babies died, but the limbs are taking their sweet time growing back. I've been spending a lot of time on them, and all are in "isolation" with tank dividers, but totally worth it. The only ones I have together are the 4 I'm keeping, and those guys get extra food just to keep the nipping down. They haven't had ANY issues since being in the tank together, so I'm going to assume that the reason, as I suspected was underfeeding, with them being hungry and snapping at each other way too much.

usafaux2004 said:

Just an update. None of the babies died, but the limbs are taking their sweet time growing back. I've been spending a lot of time on them, and all are in "isolation" with tank dividers, but totally worth it. The only ones I have together are the 4 I'm keeping, and those guys get extra food just to keep the nipping down. They haven't had ANY issues since being in the tank together, so I'm going to assume that the reason, as I suspected was underfeeding, with them being hungry and snapping at each other way too much.

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So another month out, all injuries are healed up. One is finishing up the toes. Tank the Leucistic lost both front paws, almost to the body, grew back in two months, with perfect looking toes. A bit shorter though, but I'm thinking the length with come back with a bit more time.