Jeff bit off the end of his tail, help?!

So when we got Jeff two months ago, he had a small band of retained shed on the end of his tail. At first, I thought it was tail rot but after noticing that the very tip of his tail still had normal scale pattern and no part was dry, dead, or hard, I figured it was a retained shed constricting his skin. I gave him daily soaks and used a toothbrush with olive oil and gently brushed along his tail and voila! A literal tiny tube of shed came off.

Two weeks later, its time to shed again. I noticed that the constricted part of his tail still seemed to not have shed completely and the scale pattern on this area didn't look defined and uniform under bright light, unlike the rest of his tail. I tried betadine soaks, olive oil again and nothing seemed to work so I thought maybe it just needed to heal. A day or two later, I noticed it looked a little red and now I know why. He literally is biting at the end of his tail and bit the end part off!! The part past the retained shed is now completely gone, and he keeps trying to bite at it!!

As soon as I saw it, we did a betadine soak and put Neosporin on the end. I'm about to leave to get some manuka honey, but I'm afraid to leave and not watch him to make sure he doesn't bloody up his tail more. Has anyone had this happen and what should I do??? ??

The blackish looking part at the end is blood clotting as it wasnt black previously.

Hello,

Poor baby, this does happen sometimes! It is most likely something going on with that area, even
if the retained shed is gone. There might be some infection in that section possibly. Were you
able to get some manuka honey to put on the end? You might need to get some gauze to put on
the end wrapped with the manuka honey on it to help deter him from biting the tail anymore.
The rest of the tail looks ok in the picture so if there is some infection then it isn't traveling up
the tail yet.
How is his appetite?

Tracie

Drache613":2nwfyqad said:

Hello,

Poor baby, this does happen sometimes! It is most likely something going on with that area, even
if the retained shed is gone. There might be some infection in that section possibly. Were you
able to get some manuka honey to put on the end? You might need to get some gauze to put on
the end wrapped with the manuka honey on it to help deter him from biting the tail anymore.
The rest of the tail looks ok in the picture so if there is some infection then it isn't traveling up
the tail yet.
How is his appetite?

Tracie

Click to expand...

Yea as soon as I noticed the weird scale pattern and the redness I knew something was going on, but I didn't expect him to do that! >.< Yes I got the honey and applied it last night after a quick betadine soak, and we're going to try and do that twice daily and keep his cage super clean. The gauze is a good idea, I just hope he won't try and rip it off and cause more damage, little stinker. :/

His appetite is normal, eating plenty of greens and we feed him a mix of crickets, dubias, and soldier fly larvae. He's just finishing up a shed so he's scratching himself all over the place haha. Hopefully the honey will help and he'll stop biting at it!

Hello,

I hope so, poor guy. It was probably just bothering him & he was trying to get at it any way
he could. Sorry that happened!
Hopefully it will start to clear up & heal with the help of the honey & he wont bother it any
more. Let us know how that goes for him. He had better not rip the gauze off either!

Tracie

This could go either way....heal up with the honey or continue to be infected. I'm worried that the second dark band from the end looks like there's something going on under the scales. There's a chance it could need amputation just above the second dark band [ about one inch up ]