I lost a sulcata this morning. Help understanding why

Bducks16

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A few weeks ago my 5 month old sulcata started loosing weight. About 2 grams a day. I've been watching him in his soaks and he hasn't been drinking. He stopped eating as well. His energy level stayed the same nothing to alarming. He loved his head rubbed and when I rub his head he always opened his mouth so I've been able to put soaked mazuri mash off my finger tip into his mouth to get him to eat. Last night before bed I put him in his hide. This morning when I checked on him he was still in his hide which he usually is already up basking. This time he never came out. I found him dead. His heaviest weight before weight loss was 65 grams. Yesterday he was 50 grams. His weight this morning dead was 43 grams. I did a autopsy to see if I could find anything wrong inside. I found this giant uric stone in his bladder. I've kept him very well hydrated and raised the "wet" way 80ish% humidity, 100 under Che in the hide,110 under mvb, 82 room temperature same as night temperature. His diet is mazuri and it being winter time store bought greens of romaine and collard greens and prickley pear cactus. I'm trying to figure out what caused the uric build up in the bladder. It's a huge stone about the size of one scute. Maybe I'm in denial of him being dehydrated because I feel I kept him well hydrated and soaked frequently. When he was healthy it was twice a day morning and evening for twenty minutes. When he started losing weight and I noticed he wasn't drinking it was four times a day. Here's a picture of the stone and some very odd bruising type marks on the carpace that just showed up when he died. His plastron did start to feel a little softer than normal. His carpace was hard but sounded a little hollow when tapped on. ImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1455818408.724933.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1455818429.907951.jpg
 

wellington

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So sorry. My guess would be before you got him he was raised very hot and dry, by he look of the pyramiding.
 

Yvonne G

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That is a pretty big stone for such a small baby. It doesn't seem he was alive long enough to have amassed a stone of that size.

The bruising on the carapace might be indicative of a systemic infection, which could have been a cause of death, as the stone might have.

Don't beat yourself up. It sounds like the symptoms didn't give you enough time to react in time to save him. I'm very sorry for your loss.
 

MPRC

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I am so sorry for your loss. I would assume the stone wasn't a result of your care. The bruising is probably internal bleeding.
 

sibi

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Sorry to hear of this. What a tragedy. The stone may have been a secondary issue as I don't believe that's what killed him. One of my torts, when younger had a huge stone in his bladder, but he never stopped eating nor did he lose weight. She taken to the hosp., the vet removes it through the anal cavity under anesthesia. It took a long time for systems to manifest itself. He recovered but has a propensity to get smaller stones. Now that he's much bigger, it doesn't even phase him.
The bruising on the carapace is disturbing. Did you have blood work done? That's what I would've focused on because I would never want to go through that again. Btw, collard greens can cause urates which can lodge in the bladder to create stones. I don't feed it at all to my sullies.
 

Bducks16

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Sorry to hear of this. What a tragedy. The stone may have been a secondary issue as I don't believe that's what killed him. One of my torts, when younger had a huge stone in his bladder, but he never stopped eating nor did he lose weight. She taken to the hosp., the vet removes it through the anal cavity under anesthesia. It took a long time for systems to manifest itself. He recovered but has a propensity to get smaller stones. Now that he's much bigger, it doesn't even phase him.
The bruising on the carapace is disturbing. Did you have blood work done? That's what I would've focused on because I would never want to go through that again. Btw, collard greens can cause urates which can lodge in the bladder to create stones. I don't feed it at all to my sullies.
I didn't have blood work done. It all happened pretty fast. The bruising wasn't there last night. It showed up when he died. I did a search to see what foods I was feeding was high in oxolates. I will cut out the collard greens from now on.
 

Tom

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Where did you get this tortoise and how was it started in its first few weeks after hatching?

In cases like this most people focus on what they did in their time with the tortoise. Often these things are the result of what happened, or did not happen, before the new owner got the tortoise.

Have you read these? I applaud your effort to investigate what went wrong and try to learn from the experience. These might offer some insight:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/hatchling-failure-syndrome.23493/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-incubate-eggs-and-start-hatchlings.124266/
 

Bducks16

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Where did you get this tortoise and how was it started in its first few weeks after hatching?

In cases like this most people focus on what they did in their time with the tortoise. Often these things are the result of what happened, or did not happen, before the new owner got the tortoise.

Have you read these? I applaud your effort to investigate what went wrong and try to learn from the experience. These might offer some insight:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/hatchling-failure-syndrome.23493/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-incubate-eggs-and-start-hatchlings.124266/
I got the tortoise from a guy off craigslist in Portland. He said he was helping a friend in Seattle sell the babies. So my understanding is they were born in Seattle. The man in Portland had numerous Burmese mountain tortoise hatchlings. He talked about a lot more star tortoises he had in Las Vegas. I lost his number but remember it was a Las Vegas area code for his cell #. I'm sure they were started dry and hot because he told me he couldn't keep them because his Burmese mountain tortoises needed high humidity and these didn't. I was told when I purchased him he was a month old.

I have read those along time ago. I'm going to read them again.
 

dmmj

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in all honesty unless a necropsy was done you probably will never know what happened. only guesses can be made since you said stop drinking I'm thinking renal failure of some type. But it's just a guess my condolences
 

sibi

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Dave is absolutely correct. A necropsy is the only way of determining the cause of death. It's a moot point now and it would've been expensive too.
 
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Maggie Cummings

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You'll make yourself crazy with the worry that it was your fault. It wasn't. It;s hard to keep young Sulcata. My condolences to you. Here's a picture of my Sulcata bladder stone. It weighs 1.5 pounds. I did everything right, and he died anyway. He was only 17.
VaRBFbIfOYXyzaz5wSFSxkoEsnxuvGbbv9W0YvxAWwfXfuR8IxoymyWqIGhX8TswYZZdZ_ruziPmBPc0UPenraNuWAC4UwghhcdfNY5ZUSIQmE-E6CY4H7L_ytLnaEZFQkdFqV6VzZ7pVMekaEDVr2z4-UzLaE8sIp9TeuQ81kUMDeMoHsZPGkpIDwhXgaVaKpQf_jzgB45QpEcabRbYYgI-IS3KQOkUjdaMLHsp7Mz8GAlHKemsOT-RsXvjfRfSeAbjmGhSVdD8lsdVn13x1K_HvI50uUZUk6RruxhioWCHjvhBIN-FULp2IgqtX9g2UVi9MZKkBrEvN5jbcwPTsuNNfeE48kHfsk6Hm2u73chyshrQSY3wD9oaouSHkllQ0D6CR4pHps2mYue8nJ0dJZ5XvKrNRtTE9o4qzJpy21Sos4UZYhbjhzj_YKfMgQ5Hf5s4d926KL6CpndPzE0-SyZIkneEq2-i1lU2O38CjSrmewX3exAUpR3Xav7i7vetx0e0KgMBTZIf_-GFMuYwj7rXQqIiwZFBsSfvSG7WerbNCXidUK7Eb5Kf37UmkDAGypZB=w903-h677-no
 

sibi

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You'll make yourself crazy with the worry that it was your fault. It wasn't. It;s hard to keep young Sulcata. My condolences to you. Here's a picture of my Sulcata bladder stone. It weighs 1.5 pounds. I did everything right, and he died anyway. He was only 17.
VaRBFbIfOYXyzaz5wSFSxkoEsnxuvGbbv9W0YvxAWwfXfuR8IxoymyWqIGhX8TswYZZdZ_ruziPmBPc0UPenraNuWAC4UwghhcdfNY5ZUSIQmE-E6CY4H7L_ytLnaEZFQkdFqV6VzZ7pVMekaEDVr2z4-UzLaE8sIp9TeuQ81kUMDeMoHsZPGkpIDwhXgaVaKpQf_jzgB45QpEcabRbYYgI-IS3KQOkUjdaMLHsp7Mz8GAlHKemsOT-RsXvjfRfSeAbjmGhSVdD8lsdVn13x1K_HvI50uUZUk6RruxhioWCHjvhBIN-FULp2IgqtX9g2UVi9MZKkBrEvN5jbcwPTsuNNfeE48kHfsk6Hm2u73chyshrQSY3wD9oaouSHkllQ0D6CR4pHps2mYue8nJ0dJZ5XvKrNRtTE9o4qzJpy21Sos4UZYhbjhzj_YKfMgQ5Hf5s4d926KL6CpndPzE0-SyZIkneEq2-i1lU2O38CjSrmewX3exAUpR3Xav7i7vetx0e0KgMBTZIf_-GFMuYwj7rXQqIiwZFBsSfvSG7WerbNCXidUK7Eb5Kf37UmkDAGypZB=w903-h677-no

OMG, Maggie, That's huge! I'm so sorry for both you guys. A loss is a loss of part of yourself. No matter how little or long we had them, we love our animals and to lose one is so, so sad. My Beasty boy has a stone in his bladder too. It doesn't seem to bother him, and he has no problems urinating; so, I am hopeful. But he's only 4 years old. What will it look like in 13 years? Who knows? Will that eventually kill him? These are questions that I'll have until I die.
 

cassieopia

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You'll make yourself crazy with the worry that it was your fault. It wasn't. It;s hard to keep young Sulcata. My condolences to you. Here's a picture of my Sulcata bladder stone. It weighs 1.5 pounds. I did everything right, and he died anyway. He was only 17.
VaRBFbIfOYXyzaz5wSFSxkoEsnxuvGbbv9W0YvxAWwfXfuR8IxoymyWqIGhX8TswYZZdZ_ruziPmBPc0UPenraNuWAC4UwghhcdfNY5ZUSIQmE-E6CY4H7L_ytLnaEZFQkdFqV6VzZ7pVMekaEDVr2z4-UzLaE8sIp9TeuQ81kUMDeMoHsZPGkpIDwhXgaVaKpQf_jzgB45QpEcabRbYYgI-IS3KQOkUjdaMLHsp7Mz8GAlHKemsOT-RsXvjfRfSeAbjmGhSVdD8lsdVn13x1K_HvI50uUZUk6RruxhioWCHjvhBIN-FULp2IgqtX9g2UVi9MZKkBrEvN5jbcwPTsuNNfeE48kHfsk6Hm2u73chyshrQSY3wD9oaouSHkllQ0D6CR4pHps2mYue8nJ0dJZ5XvKrNRtTE9o4qzJpy21Sos4UZYhbjhzj_YKfMgQ5Hf5s4d926KL6CpndPzE0-SyZIkneEq2-i1lU2O38CjSrmewX3exAUpR3Xav7i7vetx0e0KgMBTZIf_-GFMuYwj7rXQqIiwZFBsSfvSG7WerbNCXidUK7Eb5Kf37UmkDAGypZB=w903-h677-no
I just had an ovarian tumor this size removed!
 
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