possible mouth rot?

[maxxisnick]

I had posted this post in the cross breed section of Tegu Talk but as I am extremely new to this website I don't know if that was the incorrect place so I'm going to post it here as well, if I'm in the right or wrong place please let me know so i can put it in the correct channel. thank you

I had bought a pink panther Tegu from Jesse's jungle roughly 3 years back at a reptile convention in Arizona. He has been doing good but for roughly the past month I have noticed some differences around his mouth. He has been salivating a bit more then normal recently and in return the ring of skin/scales around his mouth had become a black color, at first I thought it was just dirt sticking to his mouth so I had whipped it off. But the past 2 weeks or so it hasn't been whipping off and instead is sticking to his lips much like a scab would. I looked into this and I believe it could be mouth rot, he is fully alert and constantly hungry and eating fine. For the last month I've been feeding him a large rat twice a week, I've been trying to get more veggies but he doesn't like them anywhere near as much, but he loves watermelon so I'll feed that to him (not very nutritious but at least he gets more water). I almost never see him actually drink from his water bowl but whenever he is at the bowl when I refill it he will drink the from the water as it Travels from the container to the bowl. His enclosure is a chicken coop that's 4x8x3 with a house that he hides in. Two uvb bulbs are set up that I replaced roughly 6 months ago, he has a basking spot that is above a large brick that he enjoys laying on. His bedding is pette moss, keeping humidity up is almost impossible for me as its a mesh enclosure, on top of that whenever I had my zoo med reptifogger going he would avoid whatever area was being effected until the water ran out and the fog dissipated. I've been taking him outside for between 30 min-1 hour twice a week where I feed him and let him roam, I've been making him chase a frozen rat around the backyard before I give it to him. He runs, and lunges at full speed for food, other then that he typically just walks everywhere. I try to let him soak every time I take him outside but he absolutely hates water and tries to run off as soon as he can. he is a handful a lot of the time but i love him. I will attach some pictures of him as well, would you be willing to let me know if you see anything wrong with him?

 

[Walter1]

From those pictures, I don't see anything wrong. Snakes and lizards with mouth rot quickly stop eating- think bad toothache. A vet might be in order, but I'm not seeing mouth rot.

 

[Debita]

I'm not familiar with mouth rot, but I didn't see anything terribly unusual from the pics. I do recognize the tiny speckles that aren't on my Tegus mouth. It just doesn't look like a problem. Could there be something in the soil that his skin is reacting to?

 

[maxxisnick]

I have removed his bedding for now, he has shown significant improvement as he no longer has his "black lips" I plan on going another week or so before adding in a different bedding (TBD) as i want to give him time for the inflammation to go down.