Illness/Sickness: Please help me out. It's not working

[Morrison]

My adult axie ate some (from what I've seen) pea sized gravel before I got her. The owner wanted to get rid of it. She moved out of town and wasn't allowed to keep pets in her home, so I got her.

Okay, you might think: "another Morrison and pooping axies topic" but I don't know what to do.
Her belly's starting to get bigger and bigger (not that she looks totally bloated yet, but something inside her belly is just blocked). She can still poop, but it's not going easily and it's not that much. She still eats but I'm also scared that if she eats too much and when it can't come out that it might kill her.

There's no vet around here and I've read that a good thing to make her poop is just feeding her.
Also there's that thing about fridging and not fridging. She's not in a fridge. She's in a cool box for a while now and still no big poop. Just tiny particles of eew goo. No gravel and still a big belly.

Please help me and my axie.
Are there other easy (and axie friendly) treatments? Something that works like a laxative something or is it possible to 'massage' an axie?

I also added a picture how her belly looked like when I got her and how she looked a few days ago. You see that her belly got bigger, rounder.

 

[Bellabelloo]

So here are some questions for you . What and how often are you feeding her? Do you know what the previous owner was feeding her?

 

[Morrison]

I feed her worms (red wigglers) and sometimes a few pellets as a snack. I try to feed her about two-three times a week (depends on how big the meal is), but sometimes she doesn't want that what I feed her.
I also fed her bloodworms a week ago because she didn't want to eat the worms and pellets.

I guess the previous owner just fed her bloodworms. I've never heard her about 'buying some worms' or see her doing that for the axie. Maybe also a reason why the worms are still a bit 'strange' to her.

I fed her some pellets an hour ago and she ate them, so she is eating.

 

[swimupstream]

Having just had a "stone" scare myself, I can tell you that if she's eating, she's happy enough.

My axie ate three filter stones (each the size of 2 or 3 peas), then ate nothing for 2 weeks, at the end of which she coughed them all by herself. Several trips to the fridge and one trip to the vet seemed to do nothing but stress her out - all the moving and water changing, I expect. The vet's paraffin oil didn't help her move them - she just did it herself when she was ready.

I'd had her back in her tank for 6 days, with everything as normal, before she spat the rocks out. I noticed that in the last 2 days before she got rid of them, the lump in her tummy seemed to be moving forward, as if the rocks were slowly moving back up her digestive tract (don't ask me how - the vet had told me they were too far down to come back out her mouth).

So there you go - I think you should stop panicking and just keep her as comfortable as possible, keep offering food, and see what happens :happy: They have an amazing ability to solve their own problems, sometimes...

 

[Neil C]

Are you sure shes not just filling up with eggs?



Regards Neil

 

[Morrison]

Thanks

About having eggs inside. I never had her in the same tank with a male. I eventually want to put her in the same tank with Xotl (male), but she hasn't met him yet.
So I don't think it's an egg 'problem'. I wish it was though.

 

[Neil C]

She doesn't need a male to fill up with eggs. It's coming up to winter with you and that's when axolotls breed. She looks healthy enough to me so I'm guessing it's eggs.


Regards Neil

 

[Morrison]

Ah, but ofcourse. I was thinking about fertilized eggs, stupid me

Is it better for her to put her together with Xotl? Or is it not that neccesary? I don't want to make her feel uncomfy or something.

And can it also cause them to poop less, like it won't come out easily.

 

[tyaxloltl]

When a female fills with eggs for the first time, it can make her constipated or may cause diarrhea. It entirely depends on how her system reacts to the hormone changes in her body. And depending on her age, it is not recommended to breed the first time she can, she should be no younger than 18 months old for first fertilized. Unless you want to deal with eggs (the work of breeding axolotls is not to be taken lightly, you also have to breed/raise food for them, and babies need to be fed every 2 hours;which means you have to be home to feed them, they are 100% reliant on you, plus axies has 2 times a year to breed, but you only want to allow her to breed once a year, so you'll have to keep her separate from the male; breeding takes a lot out of the female and if breed to soon or to often she can get sick and die. If you want a tank mate for her get another female (just make sure her tank mate is of the same species (another axolotl), of the same size, and of the same sex

 

[tipnatee]

Just to point out from the picture. I think I saw some redness spots from her back down to her tail ( maybe just my imagination ) but that does shown some sign that she isn't well. Have you ever try aquarium salt? Not the salt bath. Unlike any regular salt ,it won't irritate axolotl or effect any water quality, it should help with bowel movement and healing her redness that cause by stress.

 

[aliya23kk]

Yeah. I agree,I noticed it to. But yeah just some aquarium salt in the tank and that should clear it up.:happy: