my tortoise is sick...help please!

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dr_butterfly

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good morning,

my tortoise has been suffering from some sort of illness recently and i currently been busy researching the internet trying to find an explanation for the symptoms. the symptoms that i've seen lately are as follows, before when i placed it indoors with its partner there was no problem and it was very active more than the other turtle, it even used to jump on the food before the other one and so on. but all of a sudden it kind off lost its appetite a bit. moreover i could hear her breath sounds [similar to the one made when some one is freaked out that sigh sound] so i decided to keep it outdoor a bit. the breath sounds decreased and could be heard when i pick it up or once in a while and her appetite is back but not as how it was before. my tort now seems more lazy to move around and doesnt eat as much as it used to eat before.

today when i came to clean it, i found that its eyes seemed a bit swollen and the area around its neck between the front limbs is obviously puffy, so were both front and hind limbs. i'm not sure about the pooping part, but i guess so far its normal. oh yeah and for the first time i realize there is a clear discharge from the nose.

can any one help me please? i believe i should take it to a vet, but its not accessible for me to reach it right now, what precautions can i do to save my tort? i'm afraid to lose it :(
 

dmmj

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Puffy eyes, discharge from the nose sounds like an RI to me. The swollen limbs scare me a little bit, most likely edema. I would schedule a vet visits ASAP.
 

ascott

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http://www.tortsmad.com/ailments.htm

I agree with Captain, here is a site that is a good overview of some common issues with torts.....

I would first separate the two torts into their own enclosures, this will reduce the stress of your ailing tort....I would be sure to check all of your enclosure set up for lighting and heating and be sure they are all good...

May we see a picture of your tortoise...as a picture can sometimes be worth a thousand words...
 

dr_butterfly

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regarding the clear nose discharge its not as frequent as it appeared in the beginning and i guess maybe because she was drinking some water while cleaning it or so. i'm still observing it.

as for the isolation i did separate them completely into 2 different areas to reduce risk of spreading the infection.

regarding the heating, i dont think there is a problem in that as the weather here is very hot already in ksa and the lighting i leave them outside in my balcony so its all based on the sun's presence.

i'm still looking for a vet. but right now, is there anything that i could give to reduce my pet's symptoms? some people advised me to give it some aspirin powder as an anti inflammatory or honey. any idea if any of these help?

i'll post some pics of them in my next message.
 

ascott

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Where in the world are you located? On the balcony is there an enclosure for them there? If yes, what type of enclosure? What are the day temps as well as the night/early morning temps? Do you offer warm water soaks?
 

dr_butterfly

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hi ascott

i'm living in jeddah, saudi arabia. yes there is an enclosure, i've placed each one of them in a separate area, one of them is in a big shallow crate where it's enjoying the wide space and a water bottles crate that is like a shed for it to hide, the other one [the sick one] i placed it in a corner with surroundings that are high enough to prevent its escape and i used newspapers as floor to that area to reduce the extreme heat of the ground during day, along with providing a shade for it to hide under.

the temperature is usually very high over here, for instance it reaches a peak of average of 40 degrees C in the daytime and sometimes higher up to 50 on very hot days and at night it falls to about 34 or so degrees.

yes i do, but not very frequent, during daytime, the water comes off the tap already warm enough.

i'm attaching some of the pictures i captured today for my ill turtle.
 

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ascott

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I am concerned that with the high temps you have that your little one is having real health issues.....I would say that you should make two identical enclosures....I would also add a substrate to the bottom of each enclosure, even the sick tortoise. I also would offer some type of shade over and above each of their hides/huts to assure some way for them to escape the heat.....I also would make sure that the substrate is at least 4-6 inches deep and I would moisten the substrate a bit as well.

I see in the pics you shared a tort that is indeed sick, however, I see that you could be dealing with edema. Or, you could have a tort that is suffering because he does not have enough vitamin a in his diet...what food do you offer ? How long do you soak him each and every day?

May we please see a pic of your other tort as well....are these wild torts? As this can make a difference as to their health in captivity...
 

dr_butterfly

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i see, i will try to do some alterations to their habitat as u've mentioned.

well today surprisingly when i woke up and came to check my torts, the ill one was flipped over its back and seems like it's been like that for a while, she is still alive, but she wasn't able to turn itself back again into position. she was looking much puffier than how she's been, i believe because she was stressed out! moreover, the area of her shell where she has been on her back was slightly pressed giving it not that convex shape of the shell; after i returned her to normal position. this isn't the first time. last time i realised she was unable to return herself to normal position [that was like a couple of weeks back], that was the first time i realised that she was looking puffy. and now this is the second time she flips over like that again! but the first time her shell gets pressed that way...

regarding the substrate for the enclosures, any suggestions to materials that i could use? like what could be suitable for it? and i will try to increase the shaded area for them perhaps covering most of the place. i used to keep them before, for the past years in my kitchen, where we use a fan to cool the air, and its a bit cooler than the balcony, plus they were under our constant observation whenever we passed by.

i believe it is edema as well. not sure about the vitamins, but could be an option too. well i offer it a variety of food, usually i give it romaine lettuce, and besides that i also provide it with some salad veggies, such as little cucumber slices, some bits of tomatoes [not much of both] and whenever available, i give it slices of carrots and sometimes the soft part after removing the seeds of bell peppers. they love the bell peppers and tomatoes a lot. recently i started adding ground boiled egg shells to their diet as it appears in one of the pictures as i'm afraid it might be suffering from calcium deficiency. [the food picture contains romaine lettuce + carrots slices sprinkled with ground egg shells].

i soak them not daily, but every now and then for not less than 10 minutes, or till i feel that they have become really stressed and annoyed, they used to play when being soaked and drink till they relief themselves, but the last time i tried to soak the ill one, she seemed really stressed out and annoyed so i didn't keep it for long.

i'll upload pics of my other tort too. i really have no idea about their nature origin, as they've been living with us for about 5 years now since i bought them from a pet shop.
 

dr_butterfly

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right now i checked my torts once again and took them to be soaked. the ill one's carapace has returned to normal convex shape once again. but i was wondering something, is it normal that you feel its breaths like human chest from the plastron? as i believe its supposed to all be hard shells. and yeah, when the tort was upside down and returned back to position, its depressed area was showing elevation and depression along with each breath being taken like a human chest! is that normal?

moreover when i came to soak it now, i found at the cervical part of the carapace there was some dried foamy substance, any idea what could that be?

and regarding the enclosure, my brother worked out designing a new home using shoe boxes as the main boundaries and floor, and over that he added a good layer of newspapers as padding for the floor. in addition, he added some extra plastic parts to lift the whole enclosure above the balcony floor about 1 cm. does this sound suitable now?

i'm attaching some pictures i captured today of my other tortoise.

and here is a pic of my ill tort after yesterday's incident showing how puffy it has became now
 

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l0velesly

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I wish I could help. Your tort's condition doesn't look too good. I would recommend that you find a good exotic vet asap.
 

dr_butterfly

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yup, there are some updates...

well, unfortunately i can't reach a vet in the near future, so i decided to try my best and perhaps help reduce her ailment.

regarding her loud breath sounds, i can't hear them anymore after i changed her enclosure setting a little bit. and regarding her accident, her case seemed to be getting worse, so i decided to keep her infront of my eyes inside the house in the air conditioned room where i'm staying. she's been indoors now for the past 48 hours. and right now i actually feed her by myself as she seems like she gets very exhausted by the least movement she makes that she used to fall into deep sleep and she didn't respond by any movement even when her shell was touched as before. i also started a more nutrient-rich diet, where i used some of the available vitamins for its support. i used a 600mg calcium tablets, where i turned it into powder and used a very small amount of it along with a good amount of water about 20ml and syringe-fed them to her... she seems pleased with the taste..and seems like it is working. she used to sleep like a lot as i mentioned before, today she seems much better compared to day before.

and as regard her generalized edema, i believe a thiazide containing medicine would be a good idea, so i gave her one tablet of hydrochlorothiazide 25mg in a suspension form [powdered and with a large amount of water] as well as i made sure to give her a good amount of hydration as well till she urinates. after 8 hours of observation, i see the medicine has started to take effect, and the edema level has started to decrease. she even woke up and walked around a bit [unlike her movement before, she hardly moved] she also had a little snack of cucumber and carrot slices and she's back to sleep again. one good point to make, she had reached a level of puffiness that she hardly could get her front limbs close to her head, now she seems a little bit better.

i'll attach some pictures to show her case advancement.



the pictures are in the following order:

after the last updated pic of her after the incident, she became so puffy and used to get puffier when stressed out. and the first couple of pictures show how she is when she is sleeping, one with her head out and one with her head a bit inside. observe the eyelids as well how ballooned they appear.

the next 4 pictures are of her after i gave her the thiazide for about 8 hours as mentioned before. 2 of them are of her when she was awake and the other 2 are when she was sleeping, one of them has her head a bit inside and the other having the head outside. observe her eyelids.

and yes one more important update, the tortoise has started to realise the environment around it and started to show signs of being annoyed by the very small area that i've enclosed her in lately, and she also realised the short walls and tried to climb over them. i believe this is a great advancement, as before she hardly moved around and she wouldn't even lift her head above a certain height or she becomes really exhausted and falls sleep deeply.
 

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l0velesly

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I'm glad that the swelling has gone down. Keep on doing what you're doing with the thiazide. You said you're keeping her in an air-conditioned room... are you providing a heat lamp for her? It's dangerous for the temps to go below 75 degrees F. You should try to feed her more dark and leafy greens, like spring mix. Carrots and cucumbers are fine as a treat but should not be part of a daily diet.
 

dr_butterfly

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i'll try to buy her some dark leaves next time i go to the grocery.
as for cucumber and carrots..indeed they were just a treat :) so far her daily diet is romaine lettuce. that's what i got plenty available now.

regarding the temperature, i've just returned her to her home in the balcony once again as its a wider area and for her to get sunlight she needs for the calcium absorbtion. i just hope she doesn't flip over again, because i really want to sleep LOL
 

ascott

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A diuretic.....FANTASTIC idea.....now, while I don't normally promote using something that is designed for humans on a reptile, this may be one of those cases, that compared to the certain negative outcome otherwise, that was a good choice.....

Now, you are using a diuretic and so I sure would be sure to soak this tortoise a few times a day to keep the tort hydrated and flushed so to speak while you are using the treatment....I hope that when you stop the treatment you have jump started the water retention to flush and the tort will be able to continue to do this on its own....fingers crossed and thinking positive here.....

Apologies, I did not mean to leave you hanging, that is not something that I normally do.....the last few days have demanded me to play queen of crazy town here....I am sorry I did not reply quicker...I am sooooo happy however to see that you two are moving forward and hope all continues in a positive manner.

When your ailing tort recovers, please please please----you will want to offer a wider variety of food items. Romaine is a good item to have in a diet, but it really is not a good only item...you can perhaps buy a couple different types of green per week and then the next week offer a couple different ones and continue doing the change per week and then you can cycle back every so often....

I sure hope you will keep us posted....:D

Oh, I forgot to mention. You stated that when your tort flipped that the shell depressed where your tort was laying on its back? This is not something that should happen to a tort the size/age of yours. So, sun and calcium and soaking is very very important for this tort if you are going to be able to offer him a chance to survive....

I also would plan to put some dirt in the enclosures versus paper towels....I am a bit confused on the use of shoe box(es) as enclosure??? I am sure I just am not understanding the enclosure description...

You can use an old clothes dresser and lay it on its back, remove all drawers and line the dresser with some type of heavy plastic in the bottom, then add about 4 inches of dirt to the enclosure and you can then use this as a larger enclosure??? I would be sure to keep the two apart from one another for awhile....you will want the ailing tort to be allowed to gain strength....then I would evaluate the idea of keeping them in separate enclosure anyways, a pair of torts are hard to keep in one small enclosure as one will almost always bully the other, the tort that gets bullied becomes ill, retreats and slows activity, stops eating and will slowly fail and may die....it is nothing personal, just the way of most torts....
 

dr_butterfly

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its ok, i believe that something must have kept you really busy and perhaps that's why your reply got delayed... hope everything is alright at your side :D i really appreciate your care and seriousness with my issue :)

one point to make regarding the bullying point, the tort that used to be a bully was the female, she used to beat the male and jump over him, and now she is the ill one xD the male started to show some strength to pay back for his bullied life xD xD

i'm glad that you appreciated my updates. honestly i'm totally against using medicines designed for humans on reptiles, but my dad kept insisting to try that, and for the good it has started to show good signs... so far i'll give her a tablet day after day to avoid an overdose. she has normal poop after a good meal and she pees normally as well after i give her plenty of water and her meal. today she made a large amount of urine than usual after eating almost a whole leaf of romaine lettuce, seems like this is a good sign of edema recovery. i'll post a couple of photos i tried to capture today a couple of minutes ago. sorry for them looking hesitated, my tort has gained some activity :D
my dad suggests that she has some renal problems, could this happen?

as for the hydration, i made sure that she eats a lot of cucumber slices yesterday to keep her hydrated during the hot daytime and so that she doesnt suffer from dehydration because of the diuretic. i feed her cucumber now once in a while as this is summer season and the weather is very hot as you know. i haven't soaked them for a couple of days now because they seem getting stressed out and specially the ill one, so i decided to feed them the water by syringe feeding, moreover, as i mentioned before, i add a little calcium powder from the same 600mg calcium tablet. it's like a very tiny percentage of it. by the way what happens if she takes a calcium overdose?

regarding the variety of food, would you please help me with some suggestions? because i'm travelling in about 2 weeks time from now and my siblings will be taking care of them after i leave. so what type of leaves should i advice them to get? as i mentioned before, we feed them romaine lettuce [mainly], bits of tomatoes and cucumbers [those that we remove while making green salad] and slices of carrots. and when available we give the soft part that has the seeds of the bell peppers of course we provide that seedless, they love it a lot.

hopefully, i'm looking forward to buy them a good amount of cuttlefish bone to keep it in their enclosure for them to eat as a source of calcium. at the moment i'm preparing ground boiled eggshells to be sprinkled on their food as a calcium source.

i will try to take some shots of the shoe boxes enclosure to help you draw a picture of the description i gave, but perhaps when the sun is out again as its night over here. and yes my tort loves to bury herself under the newspapers and in the shaded area of them, the heat has increased lately. i made sure to sprinkle some water to give the newspapers some mist to reduce the heat as you advised.

yes the flipping part, i do provide her with good sun, but calcium i believe the diet is insufficient and so is the soaking is not frequent but i will try to increase that from now on :)
 

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dr_butterfly

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by the way, i was wondering, could egg retention be a reason for all this disaster to happen? and how would i know if my tort is pregnant or not? and how can i make her become pregnant?

and yes she seems like quite heavy, she drags her body along rather than picking herself a little bit up while walking, even when it comes to turning around and so on, what could be the reason for this?

i'm attaching a picture of how my brother has designed her new home. i've placed both the torts now together as my other tort feels so lonely and has been less active since her bully friend has been isolated. by the way i have made some alteration to the ground as i have added some scrambled papers to give them some mass around. is there any risk that they may eat any bit of it by mistake?
 

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Laura

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nespaper might be part of the reason it cant walk well.. no traction.. and the dont get 'lonely' that is a human thing.
I'd also say the diet need to be changed if beans are a normal thing and egg shells.
 

dr_butterfly

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Laura said:
nespaper might be part of the reason it cant walk well.. no traction.. and the dont get 'lonely' that is a human thing.
I'd also say the diet need to be changed if beans are a normal thing and egg shells.

hmm, well the other tort does walk well, and they have always been living on newspaper floor for the past 5 years, never seen this problem before!

regarding eggshells i tried placing some in their enclosure but seems like they have been untouched, i guess my torts dont like them as a whole piece so now i'm working on crushing them down into powder so that they can eat them indirectly. as for beans, never heard of that before as a tort food. is it suitable for a golden greek and an eastern hermann's? the ill one is the golden greek. and what is the suitable or best food for them?
 

ascott

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http://www.tortoisecare.org/

http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/tiberagoldengreekcare.htm

These are a couple good places to research some additional information....I would say that I personally would use an earth substrate vs a newspaper substrate; the reason is that they are a tortoise, tortoise are earth loving creatures, they like to play about in the dirt--dig in it, lay in it--just be in it...:D I know that it seems as though 5 years is a long time (in human years it is, however, in tortoise years it is a drop in the bucket) however, they need to be able to grab traction with their feet in order to walk, and in order to walk they need to be able to grab traction and they also need muscle in their legs to move their heavy body---earth soil gives a much more reliable walking surface than the newspaper, yes, they can survive for sometime on the paper, however--they live much happier if they have earth under their feet....also, they will build much better usable muscle in their legs...

I would also really really really try to cut back on romaine as the primary food offering, perhaps red leaf lettuce and green leaf lettuce can begin to be mixed in (as they are a sweet/yummy food and help to transition them to a new item). I also would not offer fruit any more than once every couple of weeks and in a small amount (also remember that a food with seeds inside of it is actually considered and should be offered as fruit, so the bell peppers are a good food item but should not be part of an every day diet, you know what I mean?

The food offerings can be matched to what you would offer a Russian Tortoise---their needs in the diet are very similar;

http://russiantortoise.net/russiantortoisediet.htm

http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/cs-russian.htm

One of the main differences would be the night temps...russians can tolerate a lower night temp than the greek can...so make sure that you keep the correct temps for night as well.... :D
 
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