Oh dear...

[Possum63]

Hello all!

I've just come back from holiday (Or lack of... Everything that could go wrong did wrong but that's a whole other story) and I was stressing about my darling axy. I get home last night and I check them and they are doing so very well - I was sooo happy! And boy have they grown in just six days!!

But the real reason I am posting here is because when I went and checked on my flatmates axy one has been severly picked on (PLEASE NOTE: her axy and tank are her responsibility and while I advise her as best I can it's always her decision with what happens whether I think it's best or not...) she has four in a 90cm long by 38cm wide tank. Her biggest is a wild type at about 20cm and her smallest is a leucistic at about 14cm. She has two golds both at about 16-17cm. I advised her (Since we were both away) to separate them out to prevent bullying since they would go six days with no food. She chose to leave them all together.

So now sunshine (one of the golds) has two severly damaged back legs. One is his foot has been mashed up and its raw and red looking up to about what I would call a knee joint and his other leg is what i would call been ring barked around about the knee joint again. The flesh has been removed so you see the bone at just this point and then the rest of his leg and foot after this point is mangled and hanging off. Its all very raw and red and gross. His front left leg also has a graze on it but it's nothing compared to his back two. I feel sooo bad for the poor thing. I separated him out to clean cold declorinated water last night and tried to feed him. He ate two worms but threw one up within half an hour.

My flatmate doesn't get back for another three days so they are in my care until then. I'm thinking I should do a tea bath for sunshine to help soothe the raw red looking flesh and prevent an infection/fungus. He isn't showing signs of stress and was swimming around this morning. Do you think this is a good idea? I've never done it before. If the limbs has been clean taken off I wouldn't be so worried but the fact they are so mangled and mashed really has me worried about fungus/infection/rotting. I'm keeping him separated till she keeps back and I believe she will keep him separated till he fully heals (I hope). Any other suggestions on how to get him to full health quicker?

Alsooo... my new little juvie got his little front leg bitten off in transit. It's just a complete clean bone like all the flesh was sucked off (Kinda gross!) in the past week it's started to grow back skin over the bone nicely and he is happy and healthy but he won't eat and I'm worried that fungus might start growing off the exposed bone..? Should I put him in a tea bath as well? I felt so sorry for my little cutie when I saw the bone there but he seems really happy now. EDIT: He is about 6-7cm by the way. Will he be more sensitive to a tea bath?

Sorry for such a long post but I really need some advise for poor Sunshine! His legs are sooo gross and mangled I really feel for him

 

[snuggly time]

Hi,

Tea baths would be a great idea. If you're worried about them you can reduce the dose of tea, but it's meant to help. Another idea is floating an almond leaf on the top of the water, they're supposed to reduce the risk of fungus and also help their skin. Hope they heal quick

 

[majikninja]

Just wondering if this worked for your axys? If had to keep my 2 juvies "about 5-6 inches long" in a 5 gallon pail until I got my renters insurance straightened out and now my lucistic one has all 4 limbs like that