schmiggle
Member
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2015
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- 88
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- Location
- Massachusetts
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I recently noticed that one of my fire salamanders is abnormally fat, despite having not fed much in the past several days.
This image is better quality:
But this one shows the issue better, I think:
I thought of three possibilities for what this could be: a gravid female, bloat, or impaction. However, I suspect that this salamander is male because the cloaca sticks out and it did so before I noticed this issue. This salamander has not fed for several days, so I don't think it's merely fat. It has been fed exclusively on calcium dusted crickets for the past several months, and I have read that overfeeding insects can cause impaction. However, I do not know how to differentiate between impaction and bloat. Does anybody have any suggestions? I know you can treat bloat at least temporarily by putting the animal in a salt bath, but I do not want to unnecessarily subject my salamander to this stress.
This has not been going on very long (two or three weeks at most), if that is helpful.
This image is better quality:
But this one shows the issue better, I think:
I thought of three possibilities for what this could be: a gravid female, bloat, or impaction. However, I suspect that this salamander is male because the cloaca sticks out and it did so before I noticed this issue. This salamander has not fed for several days, so I don't think it's merely fat. It has been fed exclusively on calcium dusted crickets for the past several months, and I have read that overfeeding insects can cause impaction. However, I do not know how to differentiate between impaction and bloat. Does anybody have any suggestions? I know you can treat bloat at least temporarily by putting the animal in a salt bath, but I do not want to unnecessarily subject my salamander to this stress.
This has not been going on very long (two or three weeks at most), if that is helpful.