Old Russian tortoise peeing brown/yellow and sneezing with bubbles

[Grace-Sophia]

Hello there.
I have an older Russian tortoise estimated to be 20+ years old. He is super active and has been having signs of breeding behaviors and chases everything with his mouth open ready to nip. He’s been eating just fine. Temps are perfect- 100 under basking spot, 80/85 cool side and 70 at night. He’s been acting super healthy but for the past few weeks he’s been sneezing occasionally, a few times with bubbles. We h just went to fill his water dish and noticed that he had just excreted some sort of brown/yellow foul smelling, liquidity substance. He hasn’t had dandelions for the past week and a half and is acting perfectly normal other than his random “breeding behavior” that has showed up within the last month. Any idea what this could be? He eats a diet of weeds, and broad leaf greens, gets soaked and has uvb and heat.

 

[wellington]

For the occasional sneeze and bubbles, you can play it safe and bump up the night temps to 75-80 for a while and see if that takes care of it
Can't really see anything with the poop liquid. Possibly parasites. Take a stool sample in to a reptile vet. Call them first if you don't already have one that is familiar with your tort.

 

[Grace-Sophia]

For the occasional sneeze and bubbles, you can play it safe and bump up the night temps to 75-80 for a while and see if that takes care of it
Can't really see anything with the poop liquid. Possibly parasites. Take a stool sample in to a reptile vet. Call them first if you don't already have one that is familiar with your tort.

Thank you! Can parasites make him aggressive?

 

[wellington]

Thank you! Can parasites make him aggressive?

Not that I know of
Sexual maturity and not being able to breed can. This is one of the times of year, spring, that they would be breeding.

 

[Grace-Sophia]

Not that I know of
Sexual maturity and not being able to breed can. This is one of the times of year, spring, that they would be breeding.

He’s never done this before! It’s so strange that he would start now out of all times… he’s almost 21!

 

[wellington]

He’s never done this before! It’s so strange that he would start now out of all times… he’s almost 21!

I think so too.
Maybe @Tom can give some help. He used to raise Russians.

 

[Tom]

He’s never done this before! It’s so strange that he would start now out of all times… he’s almost 21!

You are taking better care of him than ever, and he's thriving. Its normal for them to behave this way in springtime.

In some parts of the wild, Russians are only active for about 6 weeks in spring and 6 weeks in fall. That's 12 of 52 weeks for them to live a year of their life. They spend the hot summers aestivating, and winters brumating under the snow and ice. Because of this, when temps and conditions are right, they have to GOOOOOOOOO GOOOOO GOOOOO!