Advice needed (yellow mucous)

[Peardrop84]

Hi lovely ppl Myself and Shelby my scrumptious Hermanns Tortoise are new here and need a bit of advice. Shelby is roughly 8 years old, she is a healthy indoor free roaming girl. She still hasn't laid any eggs which is abit concerning but my main concern at present is this, last night she was just chilling having her shell stroked then as she walked away she left a long yellow jelly type mucus strand with a little black bean looking type thing in it. Iv checked her for worms and seen nothing. Iv searched Google but can't find anything related to this subject. She is constipated so wondering if it is to do with that or something else ???? Thank you in advance

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

Hello! While I can't comment on that "mucus" thing, I'd like to ask some questions so more experienced members don't have to ask them and can help you.

1. What do your feed her, how often, how much does she eat? Does she have an access to a water bowl and food bowl through the day?
2. Do you have "soaking"/bathing routine? How often, how long?
3. If I've got it right, Shelly has a very lovely house and roams around your space freely. What are temperatures and humidity in the rooms? Does she have "her own" space besides the house? Maybe a small lawn on the balcony?
4. Tortoises need ultraviolet from sun or special lamp. How do you provide that?
5. How active is she now? Does she roam all the day or mostly sits in a hide?
6. You mentioned constipation, how long it was since the last poo?

---
Be prepared to get some rough criticism on keeping tortoise within your living space and not in the enclosure.. It's really important to make her own space and make it right. Reptiles are not humans and have very different needs.
A few reasons to consider:
1. Sharing space with humans is not safe for a tortoise (this forum has a lots of posts about incidents with "free roamers", many are lethal). They are getting hit by doors, being stepped, things fall on them, they eat all sorts of weird stuff - needles, beads, dust bunnies to name a few. A friend of mine had tortoise who stuck under central heating radiator and fried itself to death.
2. Humans and reptiles have different comfort zones. You tortoise needs a humidity of 50-60% and temperature around 24-25C (75F), non-cold non-slippery substrate to walk on and a warm basking spot of 33-35C (90-95F). If temperatures are wrong, then tortoise simply can't properly digest food.
3. There are some common infections between tortoises and humans. E.g. salmonella. That's less an issue with land turtles. But proper hygiene never hurts.

I would try to give your tortoise a warm soak, if you haven't done it yet. Pour lukewarm water in a plastic bowl or tub (up to the level, where bottom and top shells meet, I guess - about 0.5" or 1.5cm). Put your tortoise in a bowl for a 20-30 minutes. Watch her to keep head above the water (she might take a sip or two, don't worry). Keep the water warm (e.g. in a sunny spot or moving tortoise between two bowls). Wipe tortoise gently with a paper towel and put her near basking spot.

Welcome to the forum! All the best to Shelly!

 

[wellington]

What Alex and the RedFoot said I second. This tortoises is not being kept properly. Which could be anything causing what you seen. The floor of your home, free roaming is very dangerous and deadly. Without proper care and enclosure she can't properly digest her food or keep things inside working properly.
Get her set up correctly in her own large, 4x8 foot minimum enclosure with proper uvb and temps before it's too late. Tortoises do everything slow, even getting sick is hidden as much as they can until it's too late. When it's noticed by the human, whatever is going on is advanced.
The mucus could be parasites, messed up gut because of improper temps, diet or something that she ate, swallowed she found on the floor
Also hay/straw is not a good bedding/subtract.

 

[TechnoCheese]

Welcome to the forum!
Go ahead and read through this for more info about free roaming.

Should My Tortoise Be Allowed To Roam around on the Floor of my Room?

Ascott said: To let a tort roam our habitats or not? Always a question that will offer up a bunch of opinions, stories of what happened to some, stories of how dumb it is and success stories....so if you see the trend here, it is that folks do alot of different things based on their own lives...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[TechnoCheese]

Welcome to the forum!
Go ahead and read through this for more info about free roaming.

Should My Tortoise Be Allowed To Roam around on the Floor of my Room?

Ascott said: To let a tort roam our habitats or not? Always a question that will offer up a bunch of opinions, stories of what happened to some, stories of how dumb it is and success stories....so if you see the trend here, it is that folks do alot of different things based on their own lives...

tortoiseforum.org

Also read through this for good, up to date info on your tortoise’s care. https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/the-best-way-to-raise-any-temperate-species-of-tortoise.183131/

 

[Yvonne G]

I don't know what the yellow mucous is, but it may be due to either the constipation or being allowed to roam around on the floor of your house. I would soak this tortoise in a container it can't get out of, in warm water for about 45 minutes each day. You can place the soaking tub NEXT TO where the light hits the floor, but NOT directly under the light. Scrambling to get out of the water will help move the backed up poop out.