Rescue Hingeback, Deirdre

jsheffield

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Welcome home, Deirdre!

I drove down to Danbury, CT, to pick up this rescue tort, a hingeback, this morning.

She weighs 1477g and is 19.0 cm in length.

She's got some shell fungus and a pretty funky shell, both likely from sub-standard conditions in her previous life.

While giving her a bath and inspection and rubdown with athlete's foot cream (for the fungus), she laid two eggs, which settled the debate as to her sex.

I put her in her new home with a big handful of fresh dandelion flowers... we'll figure out other foods tomorrow.

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zovick

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Welcome home, Deirdre!

I drove down to Danbury, CT, to pick up this rescue tort, a hingeback, this morning.

She weighs 1477g and is 19.0 cm in length.

She's got some shell fungus and a pretty funky shell, both likely from sub-standard conditions in her previous life.

While giving her a bath and inspection and rubdown with athlete's foot cream (for the fungus), she laid two eggs, which settled the debate as to her sex.

I put her in her new home with a big handful of fresh dandelion flowers... we'll figure out other foods tomorrow.

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Looks like a nice find and with the bonus of two eggs thrown into the mix. Will you be incubating the eggs?
 

Jan A

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Boulder, CO
View attachment 325261

Welcome home, Deirdre!

I drove down to Danbury, CT, to pick up this rescue tort, a hingeback, this morning.

She weighs 1477g and is 19.0 cm in length.

She's got some shell fungus and a pretty funky shell, both likely from sub-standard conditions in her previous life.

While giving her a bath and inspection and rubdown with athlete's foot cream (for the fungus), she laid two eggs, which settled the debate as to her sex.

I put her in her new home with a big handful of fresh dandelion flowers... we'll figure out other foods tomorrow.

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She's gorgeous!! Another great find, Jamie. Congrats!!
 

jsheffield

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She ate a bunch of dandelion flowers and greens overnight, and this morning has so far ignored a breakfast of zoo-med, butternut squash, strawberry, a puck of instinct raw food, and some eggshell.

I've got the eggs in the incubator and although I'm pretty sure they'll be infertile, am excited to candle them in two weeks or so.

Jamie
 

Maggie3fan

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She ate a bunch of dandelion flowers and greens overnight, and this morning has so far ignored a breakfast of zoo-med, butternut squash, strawberry, a puck of instinct raw food, and some eggshell.

I've got the eggs in the incubator and although I'm pretty sure they'll be infertile, am excited to candle them in two weeks or so.

Jamie
You sure have your work cut out for you, I know next to nothing about Hingebacks, but she sure is rough looking. Great rescue tho, she's one lucky tortoise...
 

jsheffield

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I gave her another soak today and another scrubbing with the toothbrush, especially on the fungus and ugly/weird green stuff on her shell by the hinge.

It's doesn't smell, isn't soft, isn't gooey... it's just weird and gross... my thinking is that it may be copper or other mineral evaporites from the water in the house where she used to live (Long Island, NY, which has famously odd water in many towns).

Her carapace is warped and very uneven, I was thinking from poor nutrition or no UV, or both... at any rate, she's able to squeeze out eggs, which is one worry I no longer have to entertain.

I was surprised to see her seek out and park herself in the brightest spot in the enclosure directly under the UV light several times today when it was on... for my forest torts, I do a needlessly tricky lighting schedule with dark periods during the day, and I noticed her going over a minute or so after the light would come on, each time.

My understanding has been that homeana are creatures of shade and twilight and are assiduously crepuscular, so my (possibly overly anthropomorphic) thought was that she recognized the light, the UV, as something she'd been lacking, and was going over to make up for lost time.

At any rate, she seems quicker to "come out of her shell" than the last transplant homeana that came to live with me, and I'm obsessing over her needs and welfare, which is my regular stage-1 with a new tort.

Jamie
 

method89

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I gave her another soak today and another scrubbing with the toothbrush, especially on the fungus and ugly/weird green stuff on her shell by the hinge.

It's doesn't smell, isn't soft, isn't gooey... it's just weird and gross... my thinking is that it may be copper or other mineral evaporites from the water in the house where she used to live (Long Island, NY, which has famously odd water in many towns).

Her carapace is warped and very uneven, I was thinking from poor nutrition or no UV, or both... at any rate, she's able to squeeze out eggs, which is one worry I no longer have to entertain.

I was surprised to see her seek out and park herself in the brightest spot in the enclosure directly under the UV light several times today when it was on... for my forest torts, I do a needlessly tricky lighting schedule with dark periods during the day, and I noticed her going over a minute or so after the light would come on, each time.

My understanding has been that homeana are creatures of shade and twilight and are assiduously crepuscular, so my (possibly overly anthropomorphic) thought was that she recognized the light, the UV, as something she'd been lacking, and was going over to make up for lost time.

At any rate, she seems quicker to "come out of her shell" than the last transplant homeana that came to live with me, and I'm obsessing over her needs and welfare, which is my regular stage-1 with a new tort.

Jamie
Everyone loves our brown water, you big jerk!!
 

jsheffield

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During what I think of as a new tortoise's "intake bath and health-check", Deirdre laid two eggs.

I'd be surprised if they're fertile, but they're in the incubator anyway.

I was glad to know that she was capable of laying eggs, as her shell is somewhat deformed from some combination of poor nutrition and conditions in her previous home.

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