T. kweichowensis toe rot

[michael]

One of my T. Kweichowensis got toe rot. it came in with perfect toes. They started rotting a couple weeks after I got it. The wounds were sticky and definately advancing. I decide to try getting some good advice to treat it from friends instead of blowing money at a vet. The advice recommended silvadene cream. It turns out I needed a perscription for silvadene and It's pretty expensive stuff. I opted for plan b. Of course the newt was isolated as soon as I saw the problem. I treated with triple antibiotic cream twice a day. I also treated with Furan-2 fish medicine. I removed the cork bark from the hospital tank for about 6 hours a day so the Tylototriton would be in the shallow treated water for about 6 hours a day. I did the treatment 2 days on 1 day without Furan-2 and 2 days back on. The toe rot appears to have stopped advancing and is no longer sticky. I would guess the Furan-2 cured the problem.

The "cured" animal is being kept in a bigger hospital tank with a smaller T. kweichowensis that always looks like it is walking around a corner. I bought the crooked animal 2nd hand. I am using vitamin and calcium supplements to see if it helps the slight bend.

 

[jesper]

Those conditions are not reversible as far as I know, if a calcium deficiency has caused a skeletal deformation I mean.

 

[michael]

Yea. I don't know about the bend. It is not real kinked but that particular salamander always looks like it is curled a little. I'm hoping that by good nutrition the bend won't get worse. If it is a nutritional problem it might be a good parent. If it is a genetic problem it might not be a good candidate for breeding.

 

[erik]

I have had good luck reversing kinked salamanders(Salamandra babies) and lizards (alligator lizards). I just made sure the affected animal got more calcium/d3 and the kinks went away almost entirely. The problems were caught early and were not real severe.

 

[TJ]

This is somewhat related but then again not really

The other day I removed by T.kweichowensis for feeding and I immediately noticed what looked like toe rot. But upon closer inspection, it turned out to be just skin from shedding that had hardened around the toes, obscuring them. I set the newt in shallow water for 5 minutes and removed the lose skin once it softened.

With one of my two adult kweichowensis, however, the toes on one of its back feet are actually fused together. I also have a C.pyrrhogaster with a foot like this, and I just noticed the same thing in the pic of the mysterious Vietnamese Tylototriton that Henk just posted at:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/21356.jpg

What could account for this? A simple birth defect?

(Message edited by TJ on August 30, 2004)