Baby Cherry death, stuffed w/ coco coir

Achi Jo

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Joined the forum to make sense of why our baby CH tort would ingest coco coir ..

Reaching out to you @immayo, to help make sense of what just happened tonight oct 13 2018 at 630pm we found our joyful baby cherryhead dead.. mouth to throat stuffed in coco coir. Frantic and shocked we called our vet (and cousin) to come and surely he confirmed Pablo's death due to impaction of coco coir. Using a fine long tweezer he pulled out as much as he can out of Pablo's small mouth, and it was a shocking amount of moist compacted coco coir. Its eyes were dusted with coir too. I now understand that :
1. Food dish should remain in a corner far from cococoir/sphagnum moss
2. The risk of eating something it should not have is applied to all babies
3. Coco coir bedding may be 99% suitable for captive environment but that 1% possibility of a freak accident should drive u to check on your baby tort every hour on the hour. (Should i have installed a cctv cam?)
What is baffling to me is why Pablo would eat coco coir and continue to do so in a large amount.. i mean even if he was chasing a leaf that dropped into the coir (which there were evidence of) wouldnt animal instinct tell u to stop? Before this possibility iv never seen Pablo eat outside his feeding dish.

We burried Pablo inside a basket, dugged into our palm plant. We live in tropical Philippines, Pablo's terrarium is a 4 ft x 3 ft xterra placed indoor. Pablo sunbathes and waterbathes every 730-8am, diet chopped fresh chorcorus and boiled carrots/squash, banana treat, repti vitamin powder twice weekly.

As your post is the only one i found up/down google search, i hope to hear from you and your thoughts. My sisters and i are grieving. Didnt expect death soon or at all, and terribly painful from a pet that friends joke "doesnt do much". We love Pablo so much.
 

Minority2

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Joined the forum to make sense of why our baby CH tort would ingest coco coir ..

Reaching out to you @immayo, to help make sense of what just happened tonight oct 13 2018 at 630pm we found our joyful baby cherryhead dead.. mouth to throat stuffed in coco coir. Frantic and shocked we called our vet (and cousin) to come and surely he confirmed Pablo's death due to impaction of coco coir. Using a fine long tweezer he pulled out as much as he can out of Pablo's small mouth, and it was a shocking amount of moist compacted coco coir. Its eyes were dusted with coir too. I now understand that :
1. Food dish should remain in a corner far from cococoir/sphagnum moss
2. The risk of eating something it should not have is applied to all babies
3. Coco coir bedding may be 99% suitable for captive environment but that 1% possibility of a freak accident should drive u to check on your baby tort every hour on the hour. (Should i have installed a cctv cam?)
What is baffling to me is why Pablo would eat coco coir and continue to do so in a large amount.. i mean even if he was chasing a leaf that dropped into the coir (which there were evidence of) wouldnt animal instinct tell u to stop? Before this possibility iv never seen Pablo eat outside his feeding dish.

We burried Pablo inside a basket, dugged into our palm plant. We live in tropical Philippines, Pablo's terrarium is a 4 ft x 3 ft xterra placed indoor. Pablo sunbathes and waterbathes every 730-8am, diet chopped fresh chorcorus and boiled carrots/squash, banana treat, repti vitamin powder twice weekly.

As your post is the only one i found up/down google search, i hope to hear from you and your thoughts. My sisters and i are grieving. Didnt expect death soon or at all, and terribly painful from a pet that friends joke "doesnt do much". We love Pablo so much.

Condolences. Can you please take multiple pictures of your enclosure and lighting setup so we can see whether any other factors may have contributed to your tortoise demise?

Ingesting a small amount of substrate such as coco coir is often safe. However, large quantities of any substrate can be lethal as you have experienced yourself. I myself have read and seen these events happen with lizards as well as snakes.
 

Toddrickfl1

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So Sorry for your loss. Is it possible he choked? I thought impaction was when something was ingested and caused a blockage causing the tort to not be able to go to the bathroom. The Coco coir in your tortoises mouth would of had to be ingested first. Did you get an x-ray that confirmed the Torts stomach was filled with Coco coir?
 

Tom

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I was going to ask what Yvonne asked. Some possibilities for you to eliminate:
Red bulb?
Fruit or food spillage on the substrate?
Possible other disease? Does this one live alone? Any exposure to other tortoises or reptiles? I've seen them eat coir when infected with cryptosporidia.
UV bulb? What type?
 

Achi Jo

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Condolences. Can you please take multiple pictures of your enclosure and lighting setup so we can see whether any other factors may have contributed to your tortoise demise?

Ingesting a small amount of substrate such as coco coir is often safe. However, large quantities of any substrate can be lethal as you have experienced yourself. I myself have read and seen these events happen with lizards as well as snakes.
 

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Achi Jo

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Thanks foe your reply. We had no uv lamp, just a night light in 14 watts on the side for general lighting. It is naturally 31C in Manila, 88F and humidity at 67%
 

Achi Jo

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So Sorry for your loss. Is it possible he choked? I thought impaction was when something was ingested and caused a blockage causing the tort to not be able to go to the bathroom. The Coco coir in your tortoises mouth would of had to be ingested first. Did you get an x-ray that confirmed the Torts stomach was filled with Coco coir?
Thanks for your reply. Correction: his mouth was filled with coir so the vet said likely cause of death was asphyxiation. Did not anymore xray as we did not want Pablo to decay further. His last poo was 830am of the morning, after his daily morning bath & sun soak.
 

Achi Jo

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I was going to ask what Yvonne asked. Some possibilities for you to eliminate:
Red bulb?
Fruit or food spillage on the substrate?
Possible other disease? Does this one live alone? Any exposure to other tortoises or reptiles? I've seen them eat coir when infected with cryptosporidia.
UV bulb? What type?
Thank u for your reply.
No red bulb. Yes his veggie spilled over its dish unto the coir. We believe he kept biting into the veg leaf while ingesting coir. Which is a new behavior.
No possible disease, shell and spots perfect.
Live alone.
At least 2x a day played/handled gently. Hand feeding, coaxing, walking.
 

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TammyJ

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I am sorry this happened and it is something for us all to remember as being possible.
 

Achi Jo

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So very sorry. It's just horrible. It is was one of those 1% freak causes.
Thank you for your reply. It is far from consolation to hear the word 'freak cause' but it seems to be more and more that way after a lot of investigating. I guess next step is acceptance.
 

Achi Jo

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I am sorry this happened and it is something for us all to remember as being possible.
Thanks for your reply. The debate to raise a baby tort in a sterile or closely-natural environment will then be an issue for our next tort, IF we decide to own one again.
 

wellington

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Thank you for your reply. It is far from consolation to hear the word 'freak cause' but it seems to be more and more that way after a lot of investigating. I guess next step is acceptance.
I know it's hard. Nothing you could have done as so uncommon that no one would had thunk it. I'm thinking a combo of coconut coir and orchid bark is probably a good prevention as uncommon as it is.
 
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