Solace's poor belly

curiousme · Jun 6, 2009

Hello everyone! Solace, our B. smithi just molted the last week of May and we had been leaving her alone to stretch and what-not. She appeared completely normal and the molt seemed to have gone fine. However, we noticed yesterday that she was sitting on the edge of her enclosure, with her abdomen off the ground. When we pulled her off the shelf and examined her closer, we are able to see a lesion? on her abdomen and the entire bottom of her abdomen looks fleshy pink in color and raw. She does not appear to be bleeding and other than sitting at an awkward angle, she acts fine. We are guessing it will have to be something she will molt out of, but would like some opinions.

i managed to get some okay pictures of her, but we do not have the best quality camera for shooting macro and i was having problems with the camera reflecting on the plexi-glass.

here are some side shots of the lesion

here are some ventral shots
Please don't mind my frizzy hair, i was camping last night!

here is one of her molt

and here is what she looked like before the molt

So what do you guys think? Should we be worried, or are we correct in assuming she will have to molt out of it? Thank you in advance for all opinions and advice!

moose35 · Jun 6, 2009

to be honest that dosen't look good

just keep her like normal and see what happens.

not much you can do to help.
maybe a few molts might fix it.

it just seems to be hindering with her lungs

good luck

moose

curiousme · Jun 7, 2009

moose35 said:
to be honest that dosen't look good

just keep her like normal and see what happens.

not much you can do to help.
maybe a few molts might fix it.

it just seems to be hindering with her lungs

good luck

moose

We are keeping her in her enclosure and making sure she has water available.

curiousme · Jun 8, 2009

Any ideas/opinions guys??

peachypaderna · Jun 8, 2009

Ouch. I would have to agree, that abdomen doesn't look too good. I guess you really should see how it fares before the next molt comes along. Is it eating normally? Any changes in appetite/mood/behavior?

I'm bumping this up so other people can chime in on this and maybe give you better advice.

codykrr · Jun 9, 2009

i almost want to say it looks like a possible internal hernia. but just in he one picture. to be honest, id make sure all objects in her enclosure that may puncture her abdomen are out. id leave no space for a fall and just a hide with a water dish. if it isnt a hernia maybe she will molt out of it. but id keep feeding to a minimum so she doesnt literally "pop". also keep an eye on her for any cuts or infected book lungs. but definatly hope she gets better.

Satellite Rob · Jun 9, 2009

I would give 10 days and then try to feed her.If she eat?You shouldn't have
any problems.I've seen them regenerate after there next molt and i've seen
the problem area never regenerate.Theres no way to know except to wait
until the next molt.I would not worry about it.Theres nothing you can do at this point except wait and see if she eats.If she eats she should be fine.Good luck.

Satellite Rob

curiousme · Jun 9, 2009

codykrr said:
i almost want to say it looks like a possible internal hernia. but just in he one picture. to be honest, id make sure all objects in her enclosure that may puncture her abdomen are out. id leave no space for a fall and just a hide with a water dish. if it isnt a hernia maybe she will molt out of it. but id keep feeding to a minimum so she doesnt literally "pop". also keep an eye on her for any cuts or infected book lungs. but definatly hope she gets better.

Her enclosure is a 5" square, that is 3" tall. She has about half a leg span between the substrate and the top. She has a small piece of cork bark in there that used to be a hide until she filled it in with dirt. She does have a burrow in one corner that she can barely fit into now, but i have seen her do it post molt.

We have not fed her since her molt. She doesn't act hungry, just sits at that awkward angle all the time.

Here is her enclosure

arachyd · Jun 9, 2009

I hope she molts out of it. If she does eat you might want to keep her lean to minimize internal pressure.

dantediss · Jun 10, 2009

Looks like she had a wet molt. Like molted a little too early...Like others have said minimal feeding... hopefully her next molt itll clear up a bit...Poor girl im sorry

mikie · Jun 10, 2009

I hope she will be fine...

VESPidA · Jun 10, 2009

poor girl, she's beautiful too. i hope she's able to molt out of it eventually. good luck and please keep us posted

curiousme · Jun 15, 2009

Just a quick update...... We decided from the way she was sitting with her abdomen propped up and directly in front of the ventilation holes, that her book lungs are not functioning properly. Especially since you can't really see the book lungs, except where that lesion is, so we increased the size of the top 30 vent holes 4-5X. She has been sitting on the ground semi-normally again, except she keeps her abdomen up.

We fed her a medium B. lateralis juvie with its' head squished and she immediately pounced on it. This was the first time we tried to feed her since her molt. We do not plan on feeding her heavily, because we have never fed her heavily.

The lesion doesn't seem to have changed, nor has the bottom of the abdomen. We are still hoping she will just molt out of it. She does seem more skittish than she used to, but know that attitude can change with a molt.

Once again, thank you for any replies!

BrynWilliams · Jun 15, 2009

glad to hear she's still plodding along, sounds good that you've got her setup right.

Something that you could do, I must emphasise that it's just a suggestion to think about, would be to slightly increase her temperatures and feeding regime to try up her growth rate to get her to moult faster.

I hope she get's there either way

curiousme · Jun 15, 2009

BrynWilliams said:
glad to hear she's still plodding along, sounds good that you've got her setup right.

Something that you could do, I must emphasise that it's just a suggestion to think about, would be to slightly increase her temperatures and feeding regime to try up her growth rate to get her to moult faster.

I hope she get's there either way

We currently have no air conditioning, so our house is in the 80's and higher all day and night.

We don't think feeding her more often would even work. She has never been one of our better eaters and with the current problem, we don't see that changing. Plus, with the way the abdomen looks, we wouldn't want to try and power feed.

Thank you for the reply!

curiousme · Aug 22, 2009

UPDATE:

i just checked on her and she molted sometime in the last couple of hours. We have a storm front passing through right now and we were hoping for this as she definitely looked and acted pre-molt. She appears fine, but i am unable to see the underside of her belly as of yet. Fingers crossed that the problem has fixed itself!

Boy howdy is she beautiful, gotta love those B. smithi knees!

kman · Aug 22, 2009

Glad to hear that! I hope she is all better now.

nakazanie · Aug 22, 2009

I hope she's OK! BTW, I like her enclosure. Do you make them yourself? If so, how?

Nak

curiousme · Aug 22, 2009

nakazanie said:
I hope she's OK! BTW, I like her enclosure. Do you make them yourself? If so, how?

Nak

Yes, we make them ourselves. We use 1/8" plexi-glass, square dowel rods, hot glue and clear packing tape. They are simple really and i love the way they look. i can provide more details if you need.

here are all of them:

We will be making new enclosures for our G. pulchras and B. smithi soon and plan on posting a step by step thread on them.

curiousme · Aug 22, 2009

Well, i got a look at the underside of her abdomen and it is black like it should be. So happy that it looks like she fixed it in one molt!

Solace's poor belly

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