Sulcata mouth problem

[bvlarry]

Hi,

I am new here on the forum, and have a sulcata (about 60 lbs) that I have had for about 2 years. The last picture I uploaded (it is the straight-on shot) is how he looked when I found him, as you can see, his mouth looked a little rough, and that is how he has pretty much remained.
We live in the Central Valley in CA and he has the run of the yard. We have noticed Brutus has not been eating real well. He had even been leaving some of his favorite "dessert" type items. like fruits, uneaten. So when we took a closer look, (and got down on the ground with him) we saw that the bottom part of his mouth did not look like it used to. There was never an area in the center like that, but the rest of the bottom edge of his mouth , though a little ragged, maybe, does not look like it has receded that far suddenly. He has en extremely hard time eating, and cannot take bites off of the apple I had put in front of him. We ended up breaking it into bite sized pieces, and putting it on top of his bowl of tortoise chow. We softened the chow for him, and though even more clumsily than usual, he ate as if he was hungry. The little saliva you see in the pictures is just that. He does not go around drooling.
His behavior has been a little off, however, and he has been coming out of his house very late in the day for what is normal for him in the summertime.
A friend has posted this to her tortoise group page, and the consensus seemed to be to get rid of the growth on the lower jaw. If this is to be done, does anyone have any good ideas on how to accomplish this? Brutus is very sweet, and will actually tolerate a small amount of rasping at it with a nail file, but that seems so ineffective.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi bvlarry:

Welcome to the Tortoise Forum!!

That's not a "growth" per se...its the bottom beak. It has nothing to push/grind against now that there's that big break/space in the top beak, so the bottom is growing into that space. You can just take a toe nail nipper and clip it off. You'll have to keep it clipped until the top grows back. My suggestion is to find a tortoise vet and have the top ground so that it is more even. With the top's sides long on each side of the chipped out space, it is making it hard for the tortoise to bite, because the beak wants to split up the middle...and that is painful. So when he feels the beak trying to split (during a bite) he stops trying to eat. You can help this to heal/grow by grinding it down a bit, and chopping up his food into bite-sized pieces, so that he doesn't have to bite them off.

I took in a large male sulcata with the lower beak problem like yours. It looked like a duck bill. The person I adopted the tortoise out to tells me that they have to clip off that bottom beak every so often, even though the tortoise grazes and bites his food, it still grows like that.

What would you like us to call you?

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Welcome!

 

[bvlarry]

Thanks for the welcomes!

Okay, so the protrusion has to come off. We'll start working on it. And we have already started chopping up his food, so that should help. Any recommendations on what to use for grinding?

 

[ascott]

Any recommendations on what to use for grinding?

You can just take a toe nail nipper and clip it off. You'll have to keep it clipped until the top grows back. My suggestion is to find a tortoise vet and have the top ground so that it is more even.

By the way, what an absolutely beautiful beautiful tort...

 

[dmarcus]

Hello and welcome to the forum..

 

[dmmj]

Nail file, nail clipper or dremel should work fine.

 

[Zamric]

Welcome to the Forum!

Sulcatas ROCK!

 

[bvlarry]

Okay, so it looks like clippers. I have tried the file, but it is VERY slow going, and frankly, I am concerned that when I clip, I may get some spidering at the cut because the material (horn?) is so very hard, and seems like it may shatter. Is that a possibility, or am I just imagining that? And how would a pair of dog nail clippers work? I have a dremel tool also, so should I use that to keep up with it once it is ground down?
Again, thanks for the even more welcomes. I have to say, i love my tortoise. Never expected to. In fact, when I found it I fully expected to find a home for it if the owner could not be located. Well, no owner was ever found, and we still have Brutus. I am sure I don't have to tell you how personable he is, but I was surprised. Just didn't expect it from a reptile. He also obviously was raised around kids, because whenever there are any around, he always comes looking.