Injured baby horny toad found on walk!

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Malygos

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I know this forum and whole site is dedicated to bearded dragons, and I own one and have read these forums many times to help with him. But today on a walk me and my wife came apon a tiny baby horny toad (which live in the wild here) with its entire left back leg missing. It was not moving so we thought it was dead. But I picked it up and warmed it with my breath in the palm of my hand and its eyes started to open. So i brought it inside and warmed it up more, it is up and "walking" but looks like its in pain.(no suprize!!!)
Anyway I was hoping someone could give me some advice on how to treat this little guys leg stump to help prevent infection. should i put a super shallow water dish in with him? at this point i have it in a container with a thermostated heat mat underneath to keep it warm. I plan on putting it in a setup somewhat like a beardy enclosure, but with lesser temps since we live in central Montana. I know very little about these lizards other than we find them on the road all the time in the summer. And from what i do understand these lizards are largely understudied here. So not much is known.
I dont know what exactly to do. If It does make it, will it grow its leg back, and could it be released eventually. Even if someone could direct me to another website or someone who would know these things it would help a lot.
Once again any advice would be helpfull. THANKS
 

Drache613

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Hello,

Oh dear, the poor thing! Here are a couple of linkes you might want to read, about them & the care:

http://www.hornedlizards.org/horned-lizards.html

https://reptilerapture.net/horny-toad-lizard-caresheet.html

Since he is injured you definitely will need to help him out right now. He wont grow his leg back
though, so unfortunately he will just be missing a leg. Does it look like it was chewed off by a dog
or a cat, possibly? Are there any other injuries that you can see?
Post some pictures of him if possible, we would love to see him.
To help with infection, you can get some raw, unpasteurized honey or Manuka honey to put on the
leg area. What type of tank & environment do you have him in right now?
You might want to look into some Repashy formic cal plus as was mentioned in the second article,
to help right now.

Let us know how he is doing.
Tracie
 

Malygos

Member
Original Poster
Thanks for the links. It does look bit off, only leaving a tiny piece, most likely from a preditory bird failed to finish the job. There are no other obvious injuries I can see. But it is difficult as the whole lizard is maybe 2 1/2cm long. And I dont want to stress it out fooling with it to get a real good look at its underside. which also brings me to the honey. I have heard of this before, but im worried that it is so small that the sticky of the honey may impair movement or stick its little stump to the substrate(a cloth as of now). Is it possible to use antibiotic ointment, or silver solution maybe?
I will try to post pics tomorrow and update with how its doing.
Its a baby Greater Short-horned Lizard from central Montana(where I live and found it). I will be tring to harvest some harvester ants for it to eat tomorrow. We will see how that goes considering they bite and sting. But from what i understand this is their main diet. Which gets me wondering how hard it would be to start or move a harvester ant colony indoors for winter feeding.
Anyhow thanks for the information, and anything else will be greatly appreciated.
O yeah it did make a little poop a few hours after i brought it in. Which has to be a little good sign its insides are ok?
 

kingofnobbys

BD.org Sicko
I suggest you contact a reptile zoo and ask the professional keepers for guidance on how to feed this little rescued lizard , there may be a special formula available for this species .
Also the injury needs to be cleaned up and "patched up" by a competent reptile vet , antibiotics will be needed and pain management , the vet should treat this wild reptile for free ( well vets in Australia do so ).

If you are contemplating feeding live ants to it, make sure the injury is NOT EXPOSED , the ants WILL attack that area and will likely make it worse.
If you are going to apply honey to the injury and leave it exposed, ants will be drawn to the honey.

I've rescued several lizards over the years , I suggest perhaps you find some ant nests, break into and use vacuum bug catcher to gather the volume of ants needed for a week , freeze them quickly , then simply take out the number of frozen ants needed each meal to mash them and give the mashed ants orally by syringe with a suitable feeder setup - 10G feeding needle and syringe ?
Assuming you can't get it to take an insectivore critical care mix from somewhere like Oxbow.
 

AHBD

BD.org Sicko
Hi there, poor little tiny dude, it's not likely to survive but you can always try. Honey would be a great treatment but in this case the a.b. cream or Neposporin would be better only for the reason that honey will attract the ants to the wound but Neosporin will repel them . It's too bad these guys need ants to survive, that really limits your way of getting nutrition in to him. Is there a wildlife or reptile rehab near you by chance ? Anyway, he will need a LOT of the ants. I hope you might have success with the little guy.
 

Drache613

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Hello,

I was wondering the same thing, how your little rescued horny toad was doing?

Tracie
 
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