Any safe treats after a day at the vet?

[Mons]

My male Russian tortoise, who's 4 now, went to a new vet today for his annual checkup and bloodwork and fecal check and all that stuff.

The vet is the closest vet with a good history of treating tortoises and is an hour away from where we live, so my Shelly had a long day, and the bloodwork went well but I don't think the little guy approved. (His past tort specialist vets have either passed away or retired so this one was recommended by others in my general area.)

So I wanted to reward him.

Do you guys have any specific greens or leaves or fruits for the super rare treat, like the equivalent of giving a kid ice cream after a day at the dentist?

I never give him fruits or sweet things, save for the occasional piece of dried sweet potato that is in the ZooMed gourmet tortoise food container. I've seen videos of people giving their tortoises strawberries but I know our little torts don't have the means to process sugar, so... ?

For now, I'm just treating him to a nice soak.

Thanks!

 

[jsheffield]

I occasionally give my Russians a small amount of butternut squash.

J

 

[wellington]

Just an FYI. You don't need to do a yearly. If the tortoise seems sick then take him in. Most of us have never taken our tortoises to a vet.

 

[TammyJ]

Treat him by promising him to never put him through that again unless he is 🤢 sick.

 

[Maro2Bear]

Pumpkin! & seeds.

 

[Mons]

Thank you folks for the ideas and input! ♥️

 

[Mrs.Jennifer]

My male Russian tortoise, who's 4 now, went to a new vet today for his annual checkup and bloodwork and fecal check and all that stuff.

The vet is the closest vet with a good history of treating tortoises and is an hour away from where we live, so my Shelly had a long day, and the bloodwork went well but I don't think the little guy approved. (His past tort specialist vets have either passed away or retired so this one was recommended by others in my general area.)

So I wanted to reward him.

Do you guys have any specific greens or leaves or fruits for the super rare treat, like the equivalent of giving a kid ice cream after a day at the dentist?

I never give him fruits or sweet things, save for the occasional piece of dried sweet potato that is in the ZooMed gourmet tortoise food container. I've seen videos of people giving their tortoises strawberries but I know our little torts don't have the means to process sugar, so... ?

For now, I'm just treating him to a nice soak.

Thanks!

I’m curious as to what blood work was done? I take mine in annually for a fecal, weight and beak trim if necessary, but blood work was never suggested or done.

 

[Mons]

I’m curious as to what blood work was done? I take mine in annually for a fecal, weight and beak trim if necessary, but blood work was never suggested or done.

They checked white blood cell and red blood cell counts. They also checked the following things:

calcium
phosphorus
magnesium
total protein
muscle enzyme CPK
liver/tissue enzyme SGOT
bile acids
triglycerides
glucose
BUN
uric acid

He for a while now has had this habit of eating really well for a while and then not eating anything for long periods of time so I wanted to know if anything was wrong, and figured it's something I'm doing or not doing, and figured since I hadn't taken him to the vet for a little over a year, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get bloodwork too. The bloodwork and fecal results gave some useful info so I can try to do better with the little dude.

Just rambling now, but it's very interesting watching a vet draw blood from an animal. I've never seen our cat's vet do that, but Shelly's vet let me stay in the room for everything he and his assistant did during Shelly's exam. I studied phlebotomy a million years ago so remember very little but still find this stuff fascinating. I had to draw blood from a baby's heel. I can't imagine handling a non-human animal and doing the same thing.

For Shelly's part, dude's been going to town on his food ever since the visit.