Crocodile Skink Rescue

Is it considered spam if I keep posting here? If I'm posting too much, someone stop me.

Well, Toothless still isn't eating. We dewormed her again yesterday (Safe-Guard, 0.0075ml PO) as she did pass some live worms again, and she is on her 3rd day of antibiotics. She HATES the Baytril. She squeaks and struggles and makes a fuss. It's funny; she never offers to bite me, though, not even when I am forcing the nasty strawberry Baytril in her mouth. And it would be entirely understandable if she did. She does seem a lot brighter, though; the first day of Baytril she just kind of lay there while I mover her head about to get her jaw open. Today she was much, much feistier! I hope that this is a sign she is feeling better. Maybe her laid-back attitude was less her actual personality, and more just her not feeling well at all. We get that a lot at the clinic with cats; sweet gentle kitties that turn into fire-breathing dragons once they start feeling better.

She still isn't eating on her own, and she lost another 0.5g. Yesterday, upon veterinary advice, I started feeding her watered-down Hills Perscription A/D canned food. I only gave her 0.25ml, as she hasn't eaten for so long we don't want to overload her system. Today she took almost 0.5ml of the canned food slurry, with a few drops of warm water to wash it down. She seems to really like it; for the last 0.25ml she would actually take the syringe into her mouth voluntarily, instead of me having to oh-so-gently pry her mouth open. I'm going to leave a glob of the A/D in her enclosure overnight to see if she will eat it out of her dish; that would be much easier! If she will eat that, I think I'll try adding a few waxworms or phoenix worms in it, then slowly reducing the amount of A/D until it's just waxworms/phoenix worms/whatever.

Toothless is eating!

She has vastly improved. Today is her 10th day on Baytril, and she is feisty feisty feisty! She's been eating Phoenix worms for about four days, and has started having regular bowel movements. She is much more active. I didn't realize how "down" she was feeling until this week; this is a highly active skink! Before her treatment she was pretty active, but nowhere near where she is now. She wakes me up at night because she's always climbing all over her cage (and sometimes falling off lol).

She is refusing crickets and mealworms, but while I haven't seen her eat them, the phoenix worms are disappearing from her dish; anywhere from 3-10 a night. She is a very shy eater! since she is very under weight, I'm going to pick up some more waxworms this weekend and see if she would like to try them. I'm still giving her supplementary A/D cat food on veterinary advice; just because she is soooo thin and because I still have to stress her out for 4 more days by giving her the last of her Baytril. The vet is concerned that she will stop eating again, which she can't really afford. And, in fact, while the Baytril is always a struggle (I wish it came in Larvae & Worm flavour!), she quite likes the A/D. She won't eat it out of a dish, but she does lap it up off the syringe with no trouble at all. She will even approach the syringe in her enclosure to eat some! Clever skink.

I'm so so so happy! I was very scared that the stress of handling her every day for her medicine would be the last of her, especially since at first she seemed to be getting worse, not better. Instead it seems to have saved her life. Now I just have to finish off her course of antibiotics, deworm her one more time, and fatten her up a bit and we should be golden. I am feeling very optimistic!

New enclosure: $300
Veterinary exam and medications: $200
Food we tried: $50
A spunky skink no longer threatening to starve to death: PRICELESS! :D

Yayyy! Glad he's doing better :D great job


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's awesome! Croc skinks are such a cool species, lucky for you that the rescue mission has been a success.

Update:

Toothless is doing well! She still goes on "hunger strikes" now and then- sometimes she'll go 4-6 days with out eating anything, but then on the last day she'll eat everything thing I give her and beg for more! She has gained all her lost weight back and is now a fat and happy skink (intermittent anorexia not withstanding). She is active and cruises around digging everything up.

IN FACT she laid an egg last week! She was digging digging digging under one of her hides, then stayed there for a week without leaving to eat. I got worried so I dug her out and... an egg! I wish I'd gotten a picture :(

She's been doing so well that now I'm thinking of picking up a boyfriend for her. I found someone with a confirmed WC male, but he's had a vet check, been dewormed and they've had him for 16 months regularly eating mealworms, crickets, phoenix worms and waxworms. They're looking for anew home for him. He looks fat and healthy. I'm planning on borrowing a friend's 10g tank to set up as his QT for 8 weeks or so, and have my eye on a 36" x 18" x 24" Exoterra for their honeymoon digs. Who knows- maybe there will be tiny little crocodile skinks in our future! :D

Here is the lady, relaxing in her bath:
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...psee5b309e.png

Update:

I located her an adult wild caught male in November, and after his round of de-worming, acclimatization, finally eating and quarantine, I put them together in a planted 30x18x18 Exoterra. This week: an egg! Unfortunately Toothless laid it in her water dish :( I'm going ahead with incubation, anyways, just in case.

I'm a bird person, really, so I'm used to hard dry eggs. Reptile eggs are kind of gross! :P Here is the egg, before I marked the top and placed it in the incubation container:

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ps3bb0a153.png

This is such a neat thread :) thanks for keeping us updated. Can't wait to see when the egg hatches.