Plastron problem...

[jewlee]

This turtle was recently given to me. I'm the poor girl's 4th owner so a lot of information about her has been forgotten, like her age.
Anyway, her plastron has been bothering me since the day I got her. I'm new to the turtle owner scene so I'm not sure what's up.
It doesn't bother her (I think). But it just doesn't look right to me. Hopefully you guys can enlighten me as to why her plastron is like this and what I can do to help her heal.
Thanks in advance!

 

[mark1]

This turtle was recently given to me. I'm the poor girl's 4th owner so a lot of information about her has been forgotten, like her age.
Anyway, her plastron has been bothering me since the day I got her. I'm new to the turtle owner scene so I'm not sure what's up.
It doesn't bother her (I think). But it just doesn't look right to me. Hopefully you guys can enlighten me as to why her plastron is like this and what I can do to help her heal.
Thanks in advance!

it looks infected to me , i'd treat it like shell rot ..... i'd clean it with something with 4% chlorhexidine , wipe it down/spray daily with chlorhexidine and put silver sulfadiazine cream on it , the cream will penetrate better than the chlorhexidine .......... being a land turtle it should be a little easier to clear up .....jmo

 

[Yvonne G]

It's hard to say what's going on there, but I'm going to guess. It looks to me as if the original keratin and shell was damaged in some way, killing the underlying bone. Over the years, the old, dead bone and keratin has popped off and what you see is new keratin. I can tell this because of the pieces at the edges of the shell. There are two pieces at the top of the picture and one big piece at the bottom of the picture that haven't popped off yet. Because I have been in the turtle rescue business for a very long time, I have seen quite a few of these damaged shells.

The treatment Mark gave you won't harm, but I don't think there's any infection going on. I would take a toothbrush and scrub the shell clean, rinsing well. You can use baby shampoo. Then pat dry and clean again with the chlorhexidine. I would also dab on a tiny bit of extra virgin, cold pressed, coconut oil on the hinge part. You should be able to scrub away all that brown color.

Keep the turtle out of its habitat for a couple hours, and on newspaper, just to give the treatments a bit of time to do their job. Then you can put it back where it belongs. I would do this daily for at least a week.

 

[mark1]

I would have to guess at one time it was bacterial , I might be wrong ..... whether it's active or not , it very well may not be , the only part would concern me is the hinge and some of the areas directly adjacent to it , is any of it soft ? if anything looks fresh , wet , or oozing i'd use the sulfadene cream , or something with gentamicin ...... if the turtle acts sick or doesn't eat , i'd look to the vet ..... this stuff penetrates really well and is pretty good when your guessing ....

 

[jewlee]

Thank you guys! I will try these remedies for sure hopefully Bubbles (trust me I did not give this name to a terrestrial turtle) will get better!
Can anyone tell me why this condition might have happened in the first place? I'd really like to know so I can make sure it doesn't happen again. Her previous owners kinda treated her like she was a desert tortoise, veeeeeeeeery dry exhibit. Could that be part of the reason?

 

[ColleenT]

from what i can see she looks like a 3 toed box turtle. they need more of a humid situation. That might be why it happened, but i am not familiar with this condition, so i would not know. I am currently planning to have my husband build my a large outdoor enclosure and i know they do better outside with real soil/peatmoss/dirt and they need to be able to soak in their water when they want to.