Since there are always so many cute pics of RT hatchlings on here, I thought it might be fun for some folks to see some pics of a truly ancient RT, Mo. He is estimated to be around 80, although nobody will ever know exactly how old he is.
I rescued him earlier this Summer - he was being kept in cedar shavings, without any heat or UVB, he had an eye infection, very overgrown beak and toenails, and he was horribly infested with worms.
A few months later, he still looks ancient as ever, but he is active and happily eats greens right out of my hand. He will get another beak trim soon.
His shell is almost completely black, and very shiny. It has some old shell rot (which I have treated), but his plastron is in surprisingly awesome shape. He has cataracts in both eyes, but sees enough to eat and get around just fine. Mo is 6 inches long, and weighs a whopping 560g (he lost 20g from the worm treatment) - he is one dense tort!
His skin looks dry, even though I just soaked him. The worms gave him a vitamin deficiency, so a lot of his scales were falling off, but his skin is starting to look much better now with proper food, good light and heat, and proper substrate.
The pic of Mo eating is from today. The others are from a couple of months ago.
I rescued him earlier this Summer - he was being kept in cedar shavings, without any heat or UVB, he had an eye infection, very overgrown beak and toenails, and he was horribly infested with worms.
A few months later, he still looks ancient as ever, but he is active and happily eats greens right out of my hand. He will get another beak trim soon.
His shell is almost completely black, and very shiny. It has some old shell rot (which I have treated), but his plastron is in surprisingly awesome shape. He has cataracts in both eyes, but sees enough to eat and get around just fine. Mo is 6 inches long, and weighs a whopping 560g (he lost 20g from the worm treatment) - he is one dense tort!
His skin looks dry, even though I just soaked him. The worms gave him a vitamin deficiency, so a lot of his scales were falling off, but his skin is starting to look much better now with proper food, good light and heat, and proper substrate.
The pic of Mo eating is from today. The others are from a couple of months ago.
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