Here's some pics of poor Nefti as we found him before the de-oiling, and also a pic of a typical Soviet era oil well in Nefti's habitat.
And then a couple of pics of him all cleaned up.
You can see the damage on his shell in the AFTER photos
Steve
Nefti, the recently de-oiled Med Spur Thighed, has a circular crack in his shell, which I could see pink through when I was was scrubbing him.
Now it weeps a little bit, but it doesn't seem to distress / hurt him when I press it.
Given that even the doctors here in Azerbaijan are...
Hi guys
Nefti, the recently de-oiled Med Spur Thighed, always seems to have a milky white substance in his urine. Most of the urine is a yellowy colour but there is a discreet portion which is opaque and white.
Is this normal or something to worry about?
Thanks
Steve
Hi folks,
GOOD NEWS: The WD40 worked a treat and Nefti is now free from pretty well all visible oil!
A couple of other questions now crop up, re milky urine and his cracked shell - I'll start new threads for those.
Steve
Thanks Patsy,
Tried dish soap and basically it only works when accopanied by very vigorous scrubbing. On his shell it took 1 hour of vigourous scrubbing with a nail brush and dish soap to get the oil off.
Obviously I can't brush his skin vigorously.
Azeri light sweet crude is what...
Had a good long look at Nefti this morning. He's much easier to handle now that his shell is clean.
2 new questions:
1. The leading edges of all 4 legs are pretty clean, but the backs of legs and his "armpits" - right under the shell if you know what I mean - are still very oily, and so...
STATUS UPDATE:
After an hour with a soft plastic brush, a writhing tortoise (strong aren't they?) and many tubs of warm water with fairy liquid, Nefti now has a clean shell (top and bottom)! Woohoo!.
Head, neck, legs and tail ( the soft bits) are black and repel water which means they are...
Thanks for all your tips guys,
I will try Baby shampoo first then if that doesn't work I'll go with the dish washing liquid.
The area where we found the tortoise (named Nefti by the way from the Azeri word for oil, Neft) was the Siyazan Oil Field, Azerbaijan. It's pretty flat, semi-arid...
Thanks Larry,
I'll post some "before and after" pictures.
No idea how long it's been oiled for, or how much oil has been ingested, I just hope not too long.
Steve
Newbie post:
My wife and I found a 9-inch shell Spur Tighed Tortoise yesterday while driving through an old Soviet era oilfield in Northern Azerbaijan.
It is very oily indeed, and has probably walked beneath a leaking oil well or dripping nodding donkey because it has lots of crude oil on...