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I have another problem with one of my baby balls.
She appears to have an intestinal obstruction or something. She is about a month old and has not eaten anything that I have offered her. The other day I noticed she has a very hard round lump in her belly. Lump is between her "navel" and her vent. Any suggestions? What it is or how to treat it?

Wouldn't you know it, she is one of the most beautiful babies I have. VERY orange coloring, light spots on her head, clear white belly with black stripes almost her entire length. She is just beautiful. She was my pick of the litter from the moment I saw her.
Shari

Hey this is a statement made by Sean @ EBN...The guy who just hatched out the killer genetic stripes like a few days ago..Hope this helps and hope this doesn't upset u Sean that I used this but it is good info.....

The term sounds funny but the condition is cetainly NOT! I'm not sure exactly what causes it but it seems that it is a hardening of the yolk inside of a baby shortly after it is hatched.

You know how a baby's belly is all soft and full after they suck in the yolk? Well imagine that yolk like it was almost "hard boiled"!! The best analogy I can give is if you ate powdered concrete and it hardened into a brick in your stomach. YUCK!

Every season I get anywhere between 300-500 CH babies. I usually get a few "hard bellies." Most of the time these animals are D.O.A. but in some cases they survive the stress of shipping. I have had success palpating out these masses of hardened yolk. This is an extremely risky thing. Normally in these cases most people would feel its best to euthanize the animal but I have had great sucess with the palpation with the few that I have encountered over the years. I think I lost one about 3 years ago but none since. This season we had one little female that had a "hard belly" and she was palpated and she is doing fine now.

In some cases the yolk mass is too large to pass through the cloaca. In these cases the animal required surgery or to be put down. I have heard of a few "high end" morphs from Africa being "hard bellies" and being sold at a greatly dicounted price. In most cases these animals survived because of surgery to remove the yolk mass.

I guess it just depends how massive it really is and how long the baby has suffered from it.

Hope that explains WHAT it is...

Maybe it is caused by temperture fluctuations causing the yolk to curdle or harden. I'm not very sure...

Later...

Sean Bradley

Thank you for the information.
I figured I didn't have anything to lose so I would try it.
I gently manipulated the lump towards her vent. She didn't seem to mind at all. She did not even try to get away from me.
As the lump got closer to her vent it pushed out some feces, I thought I must be on the right track. As it got to the vent it was larger than her vent so I had to use some force. Not much, but more than before. This is the only time she attempted to get away from me. Then it popped right out.

The lump looked more like a piece of cooked potato than egg yolk. But it is out, and right now (30 minutes after the operation) she looks no worse for wear. I gave her a nice warm soak and she is resting comfortably. I took a picture I will post later.

Thank you, it may have saved this little s life. I am going to let her rest for a little while, and then try to feed her again.
Thank you,
Shari

Here is a picture of the lump I removed from this baby. She is still doing well.
Pretty amazing that thing came out of her.
Any more ideas what it might be?
Shari