My baby Sulcata is sick!

Kaisals mommy

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Sep 13, 2019
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Indiana
Help! My baby Sulcata Kaisal is only a few months old. Lately I have noticed she hasn’t been eating. So I was soaking her in baby food carrots and making sure she was getting some time outside. Even went and changed her bulb. Even though it’s not that old. Yesterday it seemed she was feeling a bit better, a little more active, drinking water, moving around. Today I checked on her and noticed she was still in the same spot as she was last night. When I picked her up she was completely limp. Her eyes were watery and she keeps opening her mouth as if she can’t breathe. So I googled it and it looks and sounds like pneumonia. So I started calling around to all of my vets. They can’t get her in until tomorrow. I’m so afraid she’s not going to make it through the night. Please any ideas on how I can make sure she makes it to the vet?
 

TammyJ

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Help! My baby Sulcata Kaisal is only a few months old. Lately I have noticed she hasn’t been eating. So I was soaking her in baby food carrots and making sure she was getting some time outside. Even went and changed her bulb. Even though it’s not that old. Yesterday it seemed she was feeling a bit better, a little more active, drinking water, moving around. Today I checked on her and noticed she was still in the same spot as she was last night. When I picked her up she was completely limp. Her eyes were watery and she keeps opening her mouth as if she can’t breathe. So I googled it and it looks and sounds like pneumonia. So I started calling around to all of my vets. They can’t get her in until tomorrow. I’m so afraid she’s not going to make it through the night. Please any ideas on how I can make sure she makes it to the vet?
I hope you will soon get a reply from one of our experts on these tortoises!!! They will need some more details on how she is being kept.
 

KarenSoCal

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I am so terribly sorry to read this about your baby.

It won't help Kaisal, but it might be beneficial to you to read this. Sometimes babies just don't make it, and it has nothing to do with your care. It begins with the breeder, and how the baby is started as a hatchling.

It may have been pneumonia, or maybe not. But please don't blame yourself, as many of us do.

I hope you will get another. We have multiple resources available if you are interested, you will find them pinned to the top of the sulcata subforum.

https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/hatchling-failure-syndrome.23493/
 

Yvonne G

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That's very sad. I'm so sorry to hear you've lost Kaisal.
 

Kipley

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Jul 17, 2019
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Seattle, WA
I am so sorry. I ordered 3 hatchling Hermann's in July. One was only 8 grams on arrival. Within two weeks two has passed. The third one dropped from 21 grams to 12 grams. I'm giving this tiny thing an injection of Fortaz in her front leg every three days for 6 weeks. I know what you're going through and I'm so sorry.
 
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