How to treat an open wound?

My newts has an open injury to it's bottom jaw, it's quite bad, the bone is exposed and it's started to swell a lot, i'm not sure but the jaw bone may even be broken, he is eating well but i fear every time he eats because he tends to thrust himself at the food sometime hitting his mouth and it makes me cringe

I would like to know how i could treat this wound?
I heard some people take them out of the water, if i did this how long should i do it for?
I also heard some people give salt baths, how would i go about doing this and again how long for etc?

any help is much appreciated

Yuck. Hi Sarah. This sounds quite severe. I think there was a girl on here a while back who had a similar problem, and (sorry to say) her newt didn't make it if I recall correctly.

Check out the health and illness section of the articles page:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/articles.shtml

..if you haven't already. It's a great sign that it's still eating. If you wanted to prevent further infection, you could put it in a container of wet paper towels and change the towels and water every other day or so.

Of course you could also try a vet, but I can't say I've ever heard of a vet setting a newt jaw before (And if they did I'm sure it would be quite pricey) but they may be able to give you some antibiotics if it's infected or something?

I don't know much on this so maybe someone else will chime in as well. Good luck,
Ali

I have veterinary experience, but its limited to your general "pets" and reptiles. Never had an amphibian in the clinic before....

but if I was treating at home what I would do is first what Ali said. Cleanliness is a BIG part of the healing process. Next step is of course to seek a vet in your area that is also a herpetologist. They should be able to get you some baytril and even some chlorahex hopefully. The chlorahex will be for topical cleaning... but these things need to be obtained and discussed with a veterinary professional of course.

Or you could just wait and watch. Chances are not good that way.

Either way best of luck!! I always hurt when my babies do.

While chlorohexadine has its uses as a topical cleaner in wounds in other vertebrates (such as mammals, birds and reptiles) I have strong reservations against its use in amphibians and fish. It contains surfactants which can do significant irritation and damage to the skin of an amphibian.
In many of the cases of these sorts of lesions, there isn't one causative agent and the wound needs to be examined to determine if there are also fungal, and/or protozoal infectious agents acting on the wound (these could be primary, secondary or even tertiary infections of the wound).
When dealing with wounds like this, the vets did not set the bones, but debrided the wound and allowed it to heal on its own with treatment and supportive care. If the newt goes off feed this may include tube feeding (very carefully to prevent further damage to the jaw).

I have had very poor resolution of this type of wound with the use of baytril.

Ed