Scale Rot

[BOOSTFEEN]

Hey everyone how's it going??? Well hope all is well. I wanted to bring up a subject that I came across today. I received my monthly issue of reptiles magazine. I came across an article about mouth, shell and scale rot. It stated that scale rot can be caused from high humidty and moist or damp substrate. Should this be a concern for the tegu's since they require these conditions or has anyone experienced this. I'm just curious on how accurate this article is about this.

 

[laurarfl]

I saw that article, too. They mostly focused on snakes as far as scale rot is concerned I thought. I spoke to my vet about it since I have a Burm with kidney disease and these animals are susceptible to scale rot. The message I came away with was that high humidity coupled with poor conditions and unclean substrate is a set up for scale rot. Bacteria and fungus love a warm wet environment, so if the enclosure isn't getting cleaned and disinfected enough, there is the potential for a myriad of infections.

If tegus require 60% humidity and the enclosure is 80-90% and unclean, problems could arise. You could see stomatitis, dermatitis lesions, blister disease, infected sores. But the problem isn't humidity, it is improper humidity and cleanliness.

My Burm can get easily dehydrated and I have to keep him at about 80-90% humidity. He urinates frequently and I have to clean his cage a few times a week. I always watch his belly scales and he's never had a problem with blister disease/scale rot (knock on wood). I know that's not a tegu reference, but we just need to check our animals often to make sure husbandry is OK and the critters are lookin' good.

 

[ashesc212]

I saw that article too and I agree with laurarfl. I think that if you clean your enclosure and disinfect it frequently, that you wouldn't have much of a problem. This month's issue was definitely interesting.