I think I'm about to lose one of my Alpine newts, and I want to know why.
She's one of five five-year-old Alpines kept in a 55 gallon aquarium. They have a floating island as well as a lot of plants on which they could crawl out of the water, but very rarely have any of them ever done so-- they like living aquatically. Frozen bloodworms are their staple food, with some small Rangen pellets from time to time (which they are not big fans of). Water parameters are good, and all of the others are looking, acting, and eating normally.
Anyway, I noticed about a month ago that this newt was looking a bit thin and walking strangely, holding her rear end and tail up as high as she could (not floating like she was constipated-- actually holding it that way intentionally, as far as I could tell). She was still eating then, though, despite the emaciation.
Two weeks ago, she stopped eating altogether despite my efforts to tong-feed her the bloodworms or entice her with whiteworms, and I quarantined her. Took her to the vet on Thursday and the vet couldn't find anything wrong with her other than some slightly weak front legs-- she said her eyes looked bright, no impaction, no sepsis that she could see, but also said she was too small to get a blood or fecal sample so she prescribed some hand-feeding formula and daily 6-8 hour diluted Baytril baths in hopes that it helps.
I did the baths for the next two days-- 6 hours the first day, 8 the second. However, sometime between the last time I checked on her in that last bath and the 8-hour mark, she rolled over and seemed to have died. Completely unresponsive. But I'm paranoid when herps die just in case they're not REALLY dead, so I put her in a container with a little water and left her overnight, just in case. Thank goodness I did, because when I went to finally dispose of her yesterday, she twitched. Poked her, and she twitched some more. I propped her head up a bit, added fresh water up to her nose, and hoped for the best. By the time I got home from work this evening, she could move both of her hind legs again (though nothing else, other than seemingly-involuntary twitches from time to time). So I changed her water and crossed my fingers. I'm not doing any more Baytril baths or hand feeding until she can at least stand up again, if she ever can.
Meanwhile, I'm wondering what the heck was going on with her to begin with. Now that I've kept scouring the web I'm thinking MAYBE it was MBD due to the staple diet of bloodworms, even though I couldn't see any odd kinks in her spine...The symptoms sort of fit, as her gait really was bizarre and made me wonder if her back or hips hurt (unfortunately I wasn't able to get a photo of her doing it while she was still able to move, though). I'm also wondering if the Baytril could have really caused such extreme harm, or if that could have been a really strange coincidence. It's diluted to 1 mL in 200 mL water, which seems reasonable to my non-vet self, but maybe she was particularly sensitive to it? I didn't really think she had an infection so I didn't actually expect it to help, but I decided to trust my vet and give it ago, never thinking that it might actually harm her. She was active and alert, despite the emaciation and the strange posture, right up until she went into that second bath.
Has anyone ever seen symptoms like this in a newt? Or this kind of reaction to an antibiotic? I'm at a loss.
She's one of five five-year-old Alpines kept in a 55 gallon aquarium. They have a floating island as well as a lot of plants on which they could crawl out of the water, but very rarely have any of them ever done so-- they like living aquatically. Frozen bloodworms are their staple food, with some small Rangen pellets from time to time (which they are not big fans of). Water parameters are good, and all of the others are looking, acting, and eating normally.
Anyway, I noticed about a month ago that this newt was looking a bit thin and walking strangely, holding her rear end and tail up as high as she could (not floating like she was constipated-- actually holding it that way intentionally, as far as I could tell). She was still eating then, though, despite the emaciation.
Two weeks ago, she stopped eating altogether despite my efforts to tong-feed her the bloodworms or entice her with whiteworms, and I quarantined her. Took her to the vet on Thursday and the vet couldn't find anything wrong with her other than some slightly weak front legs-- she said her eyes looked bright, no impaction, no sepsis that she could see, but also said she was too small to get a blood or fecal sample so she prescribed some hand-feeding formula and daily 6-8 hour diluted Baytril baths in hopes that it helps.
I did the baths for the next two days-- 6 hours the first day, 8 the second. However, sometime between the last time I checked on her in that last bath and the 8-hour mark, she rolled over and seemed to have died. Completely unresponsive. But I'm paranoid when herps die just in case they're not REALLY dead, so I put her in a container with a little water and left her overnight, just in case. Thank goodness I did, because when I went to finally dispose of her yesterday, she twitched. Poked her, and she twitched some more. I propped her head up a bit, added fresh water up to her nose, and hoped for the best. By the time I got home from work this evening, she could move both of her hind legs again (though nothing else, other than seemingly-involuntary twitches from time to time). So I changed her water and crossed my fingers. I'm not doing any more Baytril baths or hand feeding until she can at least stand up again, if she ever can.
Meanwhile, I'm wondering what the heck was going on with her to begin with. Now that I've kept scouring the web I'm thinking MAYBE it was MBD due to the staple diet of bloodworms, even though I couldn't see any odd kinks in her spine...The symptoms sort of fit, as her gait really was bizarre and made me wonder if her back or hips hurt (unfortunately I wasn't able to get a photo of her doing it while she was still able to move, though). I'm also wondering if the Baytril could have really caused such extreme harm, or if that could have been a really strange coincidence. It's diluted to 1 mL in 200 mL water, which seems reasonable to my non-vet self, but maybe she was particularly sensitive to it? I didn't really think she had an infection so I didn't actually expect it to help, but I decided to trust my vet and give it ago, never thinking that it might actually harm her. She was active and alert, despite the emaciation and the strange posture, right up until she went into that second bath.
Has anyone ever seen symptoms like this in a newt? Or this kind of reaction to an antibiotic? I'm at a loss.