Schneiders skink rehab!

[Roarschak11]

Even though this is against my best decision, me and my boyfriend have decided to take home a very emaciated schneiders skink who has, more then likely MBD, among other issues. We are setting up his enclosure tonight. Also, I couldn't find any info on this, but what would be the best method to rehydrate them? (They didn't have water dishes in the pet store...grr) could I force feed him or is that a no go like it is with BTS? I will update with pics tomorro if anyone could help identify any other problems this little one has. I plan to take him to the vet to be certain, I was just seeing if I should look out for anything. Thankyou for any help!!

[Richard.C]

Try a bowl of water first,maybe even misting,place its snout in water and it may just start drinking,force feeding or drinking is quite stressful and best as a last resort

You will be suprised,just poping them into good conditions can often bring about a speedy recovery if they have gone down from neglect,a vet visit could always be of benefit to incase of nasties and compromised immune systems

Looking forward to seeing pics and hopefully with some tlc the little tyke will come good

[Roarschak11]

Thankyou for the advice Richard! I'm at work right now, and I will be picking him up later today, but I noticed on his back legs, it appeared he had no musculature whereas the other appeared swollen? Could that be a possible infection or hopefully just restricted shed or just poor nutrition? Again I'm sorry I don't have pictures yet

[Roarschak11]

Brought him home! He christened it with an awful smelling poo I'm sure he's been wanting to get rid of for a while now. These are pics of him. The two back legs I mentioned before still confuse me. The swollen one has no retained shed on it, could this be a factor or MBD? Today is lizard takes a warm nap and maybe drinks some water day, and we will see a vet and eat another day he is breathing more regularly now as well which is great. He's already acting like a skink haha

[Roarschak11]

Should I be worried about him over heating and not going to the cool side because he's too weak

[Roarschak11]

Was able to get liquids in to him! Used purified well water with a straw and nudged him mouth open and he quickly lapped up as much as he could! He drank a little more from his bowl, then explored his new home a bit then fell back asleep behind the log hide. Good first step I think!

[donkeybuff]

putrefied well water

I'm sure you meant purified
Water is a great first step. Make sure he's nice and hydrated before you attempt to feed, if I'm not mistaken, force feeding is very harmful and can cause some kind of shock if not properly hydrated.

[Roarschak11]

putrefied well water

I'm sure you meant purified

I didn't even notice that! Haha sometimes I hate technology...thankyou for for saying that! I figured that might be a problem but thankyou!

[Floof]

OMG! Poor baby. I've never seen such a skinny skink! Makes me want to go hug my Schneiders... Not that they would appreciate it much.

Thank you for saving this poor baby, and best of luck with the rehabilitation! Looking forward to hearing how he progresses.

[Roarschak11]

He's actually doing a lot better! We have got quite a bit of water in him and his scales are looking better as well as his eyes, and we are going to try some food soon. Water water water right now. He's also becoming a lot more active, which is awesome to see he's plumping up a little bit too, he's not quite as flat and he pooped the other day il post pics later

[Richard.C]

Is it drinking by itself?

Id probably be leaving some food in there for him to

[Roarschak11]

We haven't actually seen him drink from his water bowl, but due to his increased activity I'm sure he is. We bathe him once a day and give him water from a straw twice a day, and encourage him to drink from his bowl by placing his mouth in it and beside it. We've been worried about hydration so we havnt been feeding him yet. We are going to start him on waxworms tonight though! he's been active so I'm sure he will be interested! Il post pics if he eats!

[Richard.C]

Ok,good idea,id probably leave a little bit of dogfood or something in there to,just to see if he may eat some on his own between normal feedings

Hes extremely thin

[Roarschak11]

He ate!! We fed him two small waxworms and he devoured them! We will feed him more tomorro, but we don't want to explode his little gut so were taking it slow. We saw him drink from his water bowl by himself as well!! He's doing really well from where he was a week ago!! So happy he's been very active as well and looks so much better!

Ok,good idea,id probably leave a little bit of dogfood or something in there to,just to see if he may eat some on his own between normal feedings

Hes extremely thin

I was worried he might gorge himself because he's so hungry. I read that you could harm them by feeding them too much when their starved. Would like a teaspoon be sufficient do you think? Or more maybe? I just don't want to rush his sensitive little organs...

[Richard.C]

Just give a little bit,whilst u dont want him to gorge himself,u want him to atleast eat something,hes getting extremely to skinny to hold off

[Roarschak11]

Little Schneider is looking so much better! He is fattening up nicely and his spine is becoming less visible! You couldn't really tell before, but now we can tell how gorgeous he is! His colors are beautiful and keep getting more so! I'm thinking he might be a Berber skink though because his orange bands are more like stripes than random splotches of orange. Any opinions? He really likes dog food and greens but is adorable with insects! He thou roughly rubs it on the ground and shakes it to make sure it's dead haha. Oh and we changed his substrate to carpeting. I was worried because he had some sand in his poop and figured it would be bast for skinky.

[mark_w]

I'm glad he is doing better. You'll have to get some new pics! He is definitely a Schneiders. Berbers have black and white markings in among the orange. Personally I like to keep species from arid and semi-arid environments on sand or sand mixtures. I use sand overlaid with beechwood chips or dry cypress for species like gidgee skinks, cunningham's skinks, leopard geckos and wonder geckos.

Mark.

[Floof]

So glad he's improving!! Good thinking to remove the sand, if he seems to be ingesting it. I keep my Schneiders on dry cypress mulch currently, with great success. They do burrow a great deal, so he will benefit from having a burrowable substrate. I like the cypress most of what I've tried so far. I have had no ingestion issues with this, though I'm sure a large part of that is that I feed out of a dish, so they have very little exposure to that risk compared to one that's fed over the substrate or, say, allowed to hunt crickets in its cage.

[Roarschak11]

I've been looking up some loamy soil substrates to use for him, but I figured it would be best for his health to not worry about it for now. I will get some better pics of him in tomorro to show how he has improved!!

[Roarschak11]

Some updated pics of skinky!!