Gasping Hatchling

Adriel Vinson

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Aug 29, 2017
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Opelika, AL
I have a six month old hermanns tortoise who has been gasping for breath for a few weeks. I took him to the vet and they said he has a respiratory infection. So they gave him three shots and he was fine but today he started gasping again after I gave him a bath. His temperature is 85 degrees and the humidity is low. What do I do??
 

mark1

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Dec 31, 2015
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3 shots over a 9 day timeframe ? what antibiotic did they use ? while I don't keep hermans tortoises , you don't appear to be getting any first hand answers ....... I would think he should have a 90-100 degree spot and being ill 80 degrees should be the cool side , I don't believe you need to keep him in low humidity , he actually may benefit from some moisture in the air ...... they probably have a care page on them somewhere on this site ........
 

Chizbad

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Oct 27, 2017
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Wilmington, NC
Everyone must be on holiday break for the time being.... I don’t have any experience with a Herman, so i don’t really want to try and act like I know, but I may suggest posting a pic of the enclosure and try giving as many details as you can about his living arrangements and conditions... that may make a few people with experience a little more inclined to point things out. In my experience with shots and baby torts, it seems in many cases it doesn’t end well. Mainly because of RIs being associated with mycoplasma and antibiotics do virtually nothing against the bacteria. Also, slows your tort down and decreases his already weak appetite. Boosting the necessary living arrangements could help tremendously if we can get an experienced Herman owner in here to give the necessary specifications
 

mark1

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Mainly because of RIs being associated with mycoplasma and antibiotics do virtually nothing against the bacteria.

i'm pretty sure there are 3 or 4 antibiotics that are known to be effective against mycoplasma bacteria ... baytril being one of them , I think it may have been specifically developed for bacteria without cell walls ?
 

Chizbad

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i'm pretty sure there are 3 or 4 antibiotics that are known to be effective against mycoplasma bacteria ... baytril being one of them , I think it may have been specifically developed for bacteria without cell walls ?

Well if there is then they sure don’t seem to be doing the job very well in most cases. Especially Baytril, that stuff is like the devil to these torts and in my experience I’ve seen no good come from administering Baytril. Although, I’m sure some have had success
 

mark1

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been a long time since i kept tortoises , but i have kept quite a few , redfoots and elongated tortoises , at the time baytril was it , i can only say i had good luck with it for a lot of years ....... as for mycoplasma infections , i'd have to defer to folks i'm sure seen and treated more cases than i have , as i'd think very few folks actually know if their turtle or tortoise actually has had a mycoplasma infection beyond a guess .....



https://archive.org/stream/deserttorto7932v00jaco/deserttorto7932v00jaco_djvu.txt

http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/members.arav.org/resource/resmgr/Files/Proceedings_2013/02.pdf

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1f71/ca4fadda47597bfbdc548b1a827e59034d96.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2694715/

http://www.deserttortoise.org/workshops/brownetal1994.pdf

https://www.fws.gov/nevada/desert_t...15desert_tortoise_disease_risk_assessment.pdf
 
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