Pebble stuck in axie mouth, unable to eat, wasting..

[Mads]

Hi,

I'm new to the board, and kinda new to keeping axies, so go easy on me! I got a bunch of axie larve about 10 months ago and after raising all 20 of them (no losses!) I kept a couple and gave the rest back to the lps.

I'm in a bit of a dilemma, I have those squashed glass marbles as substrate, I thought they were big enough for axies not to swallow... Boy was I wrong. I came back from holiday a couple of days ago to find one of my axies has a glass bead stuck in its buccal pouch, the poor thing hasn't been able to eat and is starting to look a little thin (not emaciated yet, but it's not looking as healthy as it's tankmates).

I just tried to get the stone out, but I'm a little nervous of the axie anatomy, I know that the mouth can stretch, but I'm not sure how far, and obviously I want to avoid damaging the little tacker, it's a bit of a worry trying to stick a pair of forceps into it's mouth to try and grab the pebble.. -Is there anyone out there who can talk me through axie head anatomy? -If I were to try poking the pebble out by inserting something in behind it;s gills is there any structures that I could potentially damage?

The situation is not critical yet, it's only been stuck for (I'm guessing) about a week, but I fear if I cant get the pebble out the poor thing is going to starve to death. I'm also a bit worried that it's interfering with it's ability to 'gulp breath' (or whatever you call it) can they respire totally through their gills without gulping?

TIA for your help

Mads

 

[Saspotato]

Hi Mads,

sorry but I have no experience with the type of situation you are experiencing so I may not be of much help. What I would do in your situation is probably take my axolotl to a vet who can remove the stone for you. It is good that the stone has not passed in to your axolotl's digestive system so it may be removed with little harm to your axolotl. Hopefully others here might be able to talk you through removing the stone yourself.

In the meantime, I would suggest you pop your axolotl into the fridge as that will slow down its metabolism and mean it needs to eat less and will be less stressed. Also the oxygen levels in cold water are much higher so your axie might not need to gasp for air.

Anyway, I hope it works out for you and your axie.

 

[ianclick]

Hi Mads,

It should be possible for you to free the pebble without hurting or damaging your axie. If you can not dislodge it with your finger you will need some smooth ended tweezers and you may need to be quite forceful.

If you can't manage it for fear of hurting your axie you will need to get it to a vet. Axies can go for a considerable length of time without food. Fridging it as Sarah suggests will lengthen this time too.

Axies can breathe using their gills alone so don't worry about the not gulping.

Good Luck and welcome to the forum

 

[Mads]

Thanks for your responses, I eventually took the axie to my lfs, they got one person to hold him/her, one person to hold the jaws open and one to use blunt ended forceps to grip onto the extremely smooth/slippery glass pebble and extract it, so apart from being hungry for a week and a little bit of stress, my axie's back to it's old greedy self, (minus the small glass pebbles in it's tank) the other three that I'm keeping with it,lost the tips of their tails before I got a chance to get some blackworm in for him! (~rolls eyes~)