Dark tail, tail rot or natural color?

[shyanne1234]

hi, i just got a baby today and it’s tail is dark. the person i got it from just gave it to me for free, and said it looked like the tail had gotten bit by another one of the babies. said to keep the tank sterile and it would just fall off. which sounds crazy. so i went and bought some betadine and going to give the tail soaks 2 times a day in case it is tail rot and putting neosporin on it afterwards.

so can somebody look and see if it looks like tail rot or just a natural darkening of the tail or?

[Drache613]

Hello,

Maybe take another picture in brighter light, as it's hard to tell whether or not there are any
indentations on it. Based on this picture, it looks like normal darkening of the tail right before
it sheds.
Does it feel flexible or hard & brittle?

Tracie

[Claudiusx]

Hi there,

Unless there was a recent injury to the tail, the odds of tail rot are about 0.

If there was a recent injury, it becomes a possibility but still a very rare possibility. Old bites or Knicks or kinks would have healed, or be obvious that they are infected.

They darken their tails for a multitude of reasons, many of absolutely no consequence

-Brandon

[shyanne1234]

thanks for responding guys. yeah, i just got him yesterday and this is my first beardie so i was worried lol.
the guy didn’t know for sure if he had been bitten but looked at the tail and said it looked like it. so i just did some research when i got home. i’m probably just going to continue the soak and neosporin for like a week jus too be on the safe side.
but this is other pics of the tail if you still wanted to look at it. https://imgur.com/gallery/zu0rsVw

i have him in a proper tank w the correct basking lamp and uvb strip bulb so maybe that will help too. but i still can’t get him to eat anything, i tried twice yesterday, maybe better luck today. but i’m thinking it might just be relocation stress as of rn. he did throw up once yesterday and i’m hopingggg it’s just that too.

[Claudiusx]

Well,

Congrats on your new baby! You should make an introduction thread for him in the introduction section!

I agree, since you don't know about an injury or how long ago it may have happened (could be recent) it's best to be proactive about it. Neosporin is fine, just make sure it's not the numbing version (or the one with pain relief).
I personally like raw unpasteurized honey. It's a great antimicrobial and has been shown to speed up the wound healing process. If you use the honey, just make sure you aren't leaving any bugs in the tank. They will chew on the honey dipped tail.

Throwing up isn't good though. Did you feed him too many bugs? Or were they too large?
You definitely don't want that to be happening.

-Brandon

[shyanne1234]

thank u!
he hasn’t ate since i have had him. when i got him they had a bunch of crickets roaming the tank he was in , so it’s possible he ate too many. the throw up had cricket looking pieces in it .

[Claudiusx]

Ok, hopefully they were just too big for him, or he wasn't able to digest properly at the petstore.

So making sure your husbandry is up to par is the best thing you can do for him right now! Good luck with the little guy

-Brandon

[shyanne1234]

thank you so much i appreciate it.

[Claudiusx]

You're welcome! Don't hesitate to ask if anything pops up, or to update us with how things are going.

-Brandon