mouth rot

[Scotts1au]

Kim, have you had a faecal exam for them? Just wondering whether it could be a Cestode or Trematode problem? Any chance they were fed aquatic snails,or raw pet food quality meat when young?

[kl]

No, they were bred here and on a steady diet of canned cat food (which I have always used in the first 6 months) before switching to dog food, as well as a mixture of veggies. This is exactly the same thing I've done since 2008 when I first started breeding Blotched. I'm stopping all topical treatments and my vet started on a new round of antibiotics that are different from Baytril.

Kim

[Richard.C]

Could be a heat thing kim,are these the same ones that were a bit weak from birth?

Only reason i ask is if so that could explain things abit to,might be more a development thing with ones starting from behind the 8 ball

Just a thought anyhows,they look solid and developing well though so i could be way of the mark

[Bluish]

This all seemed to start when I placed these animals in a new room designed to be kept on the warmer side as all my adults were being brumated in the main room. I am wondering if these animals are not getting enough temperature fluctuations to the lower end of the scale.

KL

I have a wild caught Merauke that is recovering from a nasty skin infection and is almost completely healed. She has had a mild bit of inflammation along the gum line and other issues that only started showing up when I raised her night temps to keep her constantly warm. After dropping the night temps her problems have basically healed themselves. I've found dabbing a bit of Manuka honey on the problem area with a Q tip seems to help quite a bit. Apparently hibitane can be an irritant on open wounds and inhibit healing.

[kl]

Most of last yrs babies showed at least some of this problem even though they were from different litters. I've never seen this before. The only difference I've done is keeping them warmer at night as I'm using a different room than usual. Two of the animals that show it the worst are animals that had some difficulty early on though both animals eat like pigs now and are growing. I've stopped topical treatments and I'm in day 3 of a new antibiotic which I'm using on the worst 2. If I see improvement I'll then start it on the last 2. A sensitivity culture on the mouth probably would not be effective because more than likely the lab is just going to pick up all the bacteria in the mouth, of which there are many, and the vet may not be able to tell which one is the harmful one to treat.

There is one other possibility though it would seem too simple. All my babies have had a tough time shedding on the heads. When I sent out 2 back in August last yr, the guy called me to mention the mouth issues on those. Once they shed and he got all shed off the sides of the face he said the mouths then closed normally. Remember, I don't actually see any redness or white or cheesy looking tissue as most sites describe with stomatitis. I'm going to soak my animals today and work around the sides to see if possibly stuck shed is pulling down the scales around the jaw lines as these animals continue to grow quickly. The worst 2 are now in the blue. It would be nice if that is all it was.

KL

[Scotts1au]

Kim, all of my alpines kept indoors have to be soaked to she'd, or shedding can be incomplete, and yes can cause their mouths to not close properly. I was under the impression that they had swelling?

[Richard.C]

Could very well be that kim,one of my last seasons kimberley northerns does that to,i thought the same as scott,that there was inflamed redness ect

[kl]

It's hard to tell if there is any swelling. If there is it's not very noticeable. I also don't notice any redness. The gums look pinkish white to me. I'm not really sure how the mouth is suppose to look because I've never tried to look in the mouth of a healthy skink. Here's a couple new pictures. The first is one of the animals that typically keeps it's mouth open but here after just eating, it's mouth looks normal.

Kim