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- Nov 17, 2013
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- 3,397
Yes, I did read the entire thread. I still have a really hard time believing an injury like that could have occurred with no force being exerted on the tortoise. I have been keeping turtles and tortoises since 1953 and I have never seen an injury like that "just happen" on any of my numerous animals.She has lived in my back garden for over 2 yrs .. I have no dogs, no cows or any other animals that might have caused her injury. The CCTV footage shows that she was fine earlier this morning. Struggled to move after being in the sun on one spot for nearly an hour.
If you haven't yet read the thread......she had laid an egg this afternoon which confuses me more as she has no mate.
The big question is to I have her put down considering the injury?
You don't have any spiteful neighbors who might have stomped on it do you? Is your CCTV continuous or does it show moments in time, such as every 10 or 15 minutes which would allow for some type of trauma to occur without your knowledge?
As Teamzissou said, there is not a need to put the tortoise down as long as it is eating and walking around. The wound needs to be kept clean and you should try to keep the pieces of the shell together as you have by binding or taping around the animal.
Some of the wild turtles I have found had cracks nearly 1.5 cm wide in their shells which had healed over with new skin because the shell pieces were too far apart for the shell to grow together again. Keeping the shell together should allow for a good healing process to take place.
A vet visit might be valuable as the vet might be able to bind the would up neatly plus give you antibiotics to prevent infection in addition to taking an X-ray to check for more eggs inside the animal.