Broken Foot?

[Hart]

Hi all,

I haven't posted in here in absolutely ages but Felix and I have been doing well, so well that we've just come into a new 25g tank and have purchased a new wild-type axy.

Both of them are around 15cm, but the new one had some damage done to it in my LFS, by a larger Axy. It has a wound on the side that I think is healing up well, and is coloring up really well, but this foot is worrying me as the digits all look very crooked. There's another foot with only 1 toe left which is actually healing up very quickly so I'm glad. They're eating pellets and bloodworms, and the temp is always 16-18oC.

So my basic question is: should I amputate the crooked foot, and should I wait for the 4 other toes to grow back so that it can heal better?

Cheers all

Images here: http://imgur.com/a/Suurh

 

[Chinadog]

Welcome back!
Personally, I would leave it be. It looks healthy, even if it's an odd shape, It may end up looking slightly imperfect or it might look identical to the other one, you can never really tell 'till the healing process is complete. I certainly wouldn't recommend amputating anything unless you are experienced at anaesthetising aquatic animals, and even then I'd think twice. There's always a risk to the animal when doing things like that, whereas it will be perfectly happy and healthy with a wonky foot, if that's how it turns out.

 

[Hart]

Thanks Chinadog,

I can happily anaesthetize as there'll be something in the labs I can use, I'm just worried about possible stunting if the bones haven't grown together properly. Is it likely that the broken foot will heal itself or do you think the bones are set there? I think I'll definitely wait until it's fully healed all it's other wounds regardless. :thinking:

 

[Chinadog]

I can't link you to a paper as I'm not a vet and I've been out of the Axolotl loop for a very long time, I can only give you my opinion.
When I did keep Axolotls in the 1990's I would rescue them from pet stores and garden centres in all kinds of mashed up states and as long as there was no secondary issues they would always heal up well and live a normal happy life, even if they weren't quite perfect any more.
I've never seen anything that could be described as stunting, sure, some of them ended up with too few toes, or even too many in one case, but I never saw any healed injury that hindered their day to day life. I've seen two that bled to death (not mine), one after a gill was snipped off and the other one a leg.
If they are to be display animals in your home or wherever and need to be perfect, I would let them go to someone else and buy babies to raise.

 

[Hart]

Hi Chinadog,

That's a relief, I'll leave it as is and call it character

Thanks