M
Maggie Cummings
Guest
Yeah, alright, stop with the Maggie jokes now. I DO need help, but it's the tortoise kind, not the Maggie kind. I have had Hospital Girl since she was days old. I have fed her the best diet and taken really good care of her and tried to get her ready to be adopted. But she has had one URTI after another. She's almost died numerous times. I finally just set her up in a nice habitat and figured I'd keep her until she was a little older and could take being adopted out. But as well as having all these resp infections she eats her substrate. And I don't mean she kind of eats her substrate, I mean she would rather eat her substrate then eat a meal...so I had to set her up in an aquarium on astro turf. This is what her poop looks like after 3 days without any substrate. She had 4 bowel movements that third day and they all looked like this ...
Not only do I feed her good, but I use Joe Heinen's TNT and have used it on her for almost 5 years. So I asked Yvonne what to do about her and she suggested sprinkling Miner All and stop using any colored lights. So I did that, but it didn't make any difference. She'll eat freshly picked dandelions but she's pretty much stopped eating her regular food. So today the sun finally came out. For the first time this year she was able to go outside in the sun. So I set her in her newly made pen which was planted with Sulcata graze and dandelions and red clover. It hasn't started to come up yet but there was clumps of grass all around plenty of grass to eat, but no, what she wanted to eat was rocks. After I had put her in the pen I got my camera because I thought I was gonna take those first day of summer kind of pix. But I spent my time pulling rocks out of her mouth. At first I saw pointy things going down her throat. I mean major pointy things sticking out of both sides of her neck as she swallowed. Big sticks. So that's when I realized this was gonna be a major session of me protecting her from eating crap. She wasn't the least bit interested in eating grass, she just wanted to eat rocks. I have never seen anything like it.
She fought me for those rocks...
Here's a good example...
She didn't want to let go...
As you can see, not only does she just want to eat rocks, she's blowing bubbles out her nose, so she has another resp infection. I need advice because I was really looking forward to having her stay outside all summer. Oh...here's her latest poop, this is after being off substrate and on
astro turf, but after 2 days I realized she was eating and shredding the astro turf. Then I put her on newspaper...she starting eating that the first night. Here's her poop after being off of substrate for 9 days...
Off substrate for 11 days...
She's had numerous poops in these last 2 weeks of being off substrate. I don't know what to do...I wanted to be able to put her outside this summer. I was thinking I might have a better chance after the Sulcata graze all came up. Maybe with all that green stuff growing she might not eat rocks. Yvonne suggested to feed her Mazuri as it has all the good minerals and stuff in it. So I'll start feeding her Mazuri and keeping loads of food in front of her face. Maybe if I can keep her stuffed she might not want to eat rocks or sticks....anybody have any ideas? I'm afraid she's going to burst her intestines or something.
Not only do I feed her good, but I use Joe Heinen's TNT and have used it on her for almost 5 years. So I asked Yvonne what to do about her and she suggested sprinkling Miner All and stop using any colored lights. So I did that, but it didn't make any difference. She'll eat freshly picked dandelions but she's pretty much stopped eating her regular food. So today the sun finally came out. For the first time this year she was able to go outside in the sun. So I set her in her newly made pen which was planted with Sulcata graze and dandelions and red clover. It hasn't started to come up yet but there was clumps of grass all around plenty of grass to eat, but no, what she wanted to eat was rocks. After I had put her in the pen I got my camera because I thought I was gonna take those first day of summer kind of pix. But I spent my time pulling rocks out of her mouth. At first I saw pointy things going down her throat. I mean major pointy things sticking out of both sides of her neck as she swallowed. Big sticks. So that's when I realized this was gonna be a major session of me protecting her from eating crap. She wasn't the least bit interested in eating grass, she just wanted to eat rocks. I have never seen anything like it.
She fought me for those rocks...
Here's a good example...
She didn't want to let go...
As you can see, not only does she just want to eat rocks, she's blowing bubbles out her nose, so she has another resp infection. I need advice because I was really looking forward to having her stay outside all summer. Oh...here's her latest poop, this is after being off substrate and on
astro turf, but after 2 days I realized she was eating and shredding the astro turf. Then I put her on newspaper...she starting eating that the first night. Here's her poop after being off of substrate for 9 days...
Off substrate for 11 days...
She's had numerous poops in these last 2 weeks of being off substrate. I don't know what to do...I wanted to be able to put her outside this summer. I was thinking I might have a better chance after the Sulcata graze all came up. Maybe with all that green stuff growing she might not eat rocks. Yvonne suggested to feed her Mazuri as it has all the good minerals and stuff in it. So I'll start feeding her Mazuri and keeping loads of food in front of her face. Maybe if I can keep her stuffed she might not want to eat rocks or sticks....anybody have any ideas? I'm afraid she's going to burst her intestines or something.