My tortoise lost his feet :(

[Yvonne G]

Something has caused the feet to die and fall off, similar to what has been described in the tail docking post. My guess would be that the heating pad was too hot for the baby tortoise. If this were something new, for example a rat chewing them off, there would be blood and an open wound on the legs. This is a very old injury that took a long time to happen, and while it was happening, the leg portion of the injury had time to heal.

I'm sorry this happened to your RF tortoise, but there's nothing you can do about it at this time. I suggest you remove the heating pad and use overhead heat instead.

 

[Jacqui]

Are the front feet looking perfectly fine? Interesting it only happened to the back feet. Poor little guy.

 

[Yvonne G]

The picture I had was of the heating pad being at the mouth of the hiding place where the back feet were more likely to come into contact with it while the tortoise was head-in to the hiding place.

 

[mike taylor]

You think he could of had a circulation problem with the feet ? Thats just weird that he was just walking around then feet fell off . There was no signs of discomfort in how he was acting?

 

[MyTortoise]

I would never thought that could ever happen! I'm a bit scared for my girl now... :O

I hope that he/she is alright!

 

[Yvonne G]

If the tortoise was being kept on coco coir, there may have been those long strings that come in the substrate and could have wrapped around the 'ankles' cutting off the circulation. Seem too much of a coincidence to happen to both feet though.

 

[Cute_Obi]

Ahhh! Yvonne, you're scaring me. I use coco coir and I see those long strings sticking out in the substrate. I'm going straight home to remove as many of those loose string as I can tonight.

 

[Watsonpartyof4]

I pray they took the poor thing to the vet... I saw this last night and couldn't sleep thinking about this poor little Redfoot

 

[Pokeymeg]

I had the unpleasant experience of having a baby Hermann get sick a couple years ago....When he first got sick, we turned up the heat, but apparently it was too hot and too dry, and he ended up losing his little tail. This poor tortoise's legs look very similar to what I saw and makes me suspicious of the heat pad used. I think heat may be a factor in this awful situation

 

[EricIvins]

This is not from frostbite or a heat pad. This is obviously a very long term issue that nobody online can diagnose. Even a Vet is going to have a hard time determining a cause since the issue has corrected itself. I would suspect long term nail issues that resulted in infection traveling up the nail bed and into the foot itself. I have seen many cases of this happening, and eventual necrosis occurs wherever the infection settles. The result is hidden under the leg scales until they are eventually sloughed off, which is the last and longest step of the process. Depending on the scope of the infection, I've seen chunks of leg missing, or the forelimb just about hollowed out. Some of these animals never showed any outward symptoms either...

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

Thank you mods.

 

[Pokeymeg]

Any news from the vet? What did they have to say??

 

[ascott]

The result is hidden under the leg scales until they are eventually sloughed off, which is the last and longest step of the process. Depending on the scope of the infection, I've seen chunks of leg missing, or the forelimb just about hollowed out. Some of these animals never showed any outward symptoms either...

Very well described. Sometime back I adopted in 2 Redfoot Torts from a member here who decided this was not the species they wanted....so after observing the two...and watching bullying behavior along with an attack from one to the other...I separated them.

I noticed that the one that had been attacked had issues with front feet...eventually both front feet had similar incident (not as whole and complete) where a large part of each front food sloughed off with the toe nail and all...the feet on that tort are completely healed and no real sign of issue other than a few of the toe nails never came back...I believe the damage here was due to bite injury before the torts ever arrived here where they were forced to be housed together as a pair...and then me observing one of the attacks allowed me to separate...and that tort is now strong and outgoing...

Since the tort is so young, who knows what it encountered before arriving with you ???? Because this is not a condition that happens quickly or over night...but takes time to come to this...

 

[compassrose26]

Any news on this??

 

[Watsonpartyof4]

Any news on this??

Wondering the same thing....

 

[ascott]

they may have just been a drop in/out....?????

 

[jennanne]

Dying to know if the poor little thing is ok [PENSIVE FACE]

 

[bellamia]

Any updates on this little guy ?
Hope he is okay

 

[netosols]

Hello the baby tortoise is getting better. It under medication and the legs are healing. But the vet couldnt diagnose the problem. I hope it doest happen again

 

[bellamia]

I'm very happy to hear your baby is getting better , that's great news!