Hi! I found a 3-toed male that is missing the scutes over his tail and hindquarters. Even so, he was able to close almost completely when I picked him up out of the wild. He doesn't even bother anymore, but I offer this info to you in hopes it will make you feel a little better about your little guys future. I also posted last spring with a little box turtle brought to me after being run over by a commercial lawn mower. It took off a big piece of carapace leaving only a thin membrane over the air sac. I took her to my vet everyother day for antibiotic injections and I administered pain meds to her orally with a syringe for the first week. I also rinsed her wound with an antiseptic solution several times a day. Like another reader said, it is important to keep wounds as clean as possible. She was housed in a wading pool indoors on clean newspapers. She was able to crawl under a sheet as her little "hide". If your turtles injuries are confined to the edges of the shell and relatively minor, I think you can rinse them with a sterile saline solution . It would really help all of us if we could see a picture and the extent of the damage.
