Our young corn escaped a few weeks ago and was loose for about 2 weeks before I found him on the front porch. He had some kind of injury to his tail - there are several small black spots, and the tip inch or so of the tail is dark - bruised looking - under the entire area. We have dogs and cats so the spots could be a tooth or claw marks, but his tank was near an outlet that had the cover off, so perhaps it's possible that he escaped through the wall and received electrical burns? At any rate, I immediately soaked him in warm water (he drank), applied silvadene cream to the entire affected area, which is about 4" or so from the tail up and put him in a small hospital tank on a paper towel.
The black spots (punctures? burns?) seem to be getting better with daily silvadene applications and he's using the tail easier now, though the very tip of the tail is still uniformly dark under his pattern and I'm afraid he may lose it. I fed him a fuzzy mouse 6 days ago (which was eaten with normal gusto) and he's been getting soaks / drinks every other day (he tips over all water containers that are put in the hosp tank so I take him out to do this) My concern is that he hasn't pooped yet, even though it's looked like there's a good one loaded and ready to go since the day he was found outside. No way to know if he pooped after the meal 3 weeks ago because he escaped 2 days after eating. I'm hesitant to put him back in his regular tank until I know all his bodily functions are in working order. Am I being silly? His regular tank is a 55 gal with lots of hides & aspen, so a poop could easily go unnoticed. (I clean/replace all bedding every couple of weeks and don't usually find his droppings) Thoughts?
The black spots (punctures? burns?) seem to be getting better with daily silvadene applications and he's using the tail easier now, though the very tip of the tail is still uniformly dark under his pattern and I'm afraid he may lose it. I fed him a fuzzy mouse 6 days ago (which was eaten with normal gusto) and he's been getting soaks / drinks every other day (he tips over all water containers that are put in the hosp tank so I take him out to do this) My concern is that he hasn't pooped yet, even though it's looked like there's a good one loaded and ready to go since the day he was found outside. No way to know if he pooped after the meal 3 weeks ago because he escaped 2 days after eating. I'm hesitant to put him back in his regular tank until I know all his bodily functions are in working order. Am I being silly? His regular tank is a 55 gal with lots of hides & aspen, so a poop could easily go unnoticed. (I clean/replace all bedding every couple of weeks and don't usually find his droppings) Thoughts?
