Please help, puffy eyes.

[hunterk997]

The picture doesn't show it well, but her eyes are puffy. They aren't always, but it seems like whenever I go to look at her they are, then they go back down when she sees me. They did this around four times just a little bit ago. The first time the eyes were a bit watery (but I soaked her just before that so it might just be water) but then a few times she would rub her eyes on her front legs. Her substrate is kind of moist underneath but is dry on top. She has a zilla 50 dessert tube uv light. Her basking temp lately has been in the 90's, but just now I panicked and raised it to 95 or more. The cool end is around 75. She yawns sometimes, but I've been told this is normal. There is nothing else that seems to be wrong (no bubbles from nose or mucus). Is this a respiratory infection? Or is there a vitamin A deficiency? Or do I need to moisten the substrate some to stop it from getting dusty (it's a mix of coconut coir and topsoil, and the topsoil contains peat moss). The humidity is a little below 50%. Any help will be great.

This sucks because school just started and now this is going to keep me worrying.


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[Yvonne G]

Because she sometimes wipes her face on her front legs, it leads me to believe that there is something actually wrong with her eyes. She might be allergic to the substrate. The tube-type lights are not supposed to be harmful. What kind of heat are you providing?

 

[hunterk997]

Because she sometimes wipes her face on her front legs, it leads me to believe that there is something actually wrong with her eyes. She might be allergic to the substrate. The tube-type lights are not supposed to be harmful. What kind of heat are you providing?

I'm heating with a normal incandescent bulb. It's possible for her to be allergic to it? I guess that's make sense. Because she didn't do it when I had her in repti bark. Any other substrates you'd recommend I try? Thanks for the reply


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[Yvonne G]

Why don't you just clean it all out and put down paper towels for a week or so. If the eye problem goes away, then you'll know it was the substrate. (It looks pretty dry to me. It might be dust that's bothering her)

 

[hunterk997]

Why don't you just clean it all out and put down paper towels for a week or so. If the eye problem goes away, then you'll know it was the substrate. (It looks pretty dry to me. It might be dust that's bothering her)

Okay. I'll try it. But the only concern is every time she has encountered paper towels, she has tried to eat it. Will she just take a bite and realize it's not good?


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[morloch]

I always spritz my tort all over,, especially his face, cleans and refreshes him, especially dust.

 

[WillTort2]

One thing to try would be to adjust your moisture levels upward in your substrate. I like the idea of giving the tort a choice of moisture levels. If you bisect your enclosure down the middle from your basking area to your cool end; and make one side more moist by adding a gallon or a half gallon of water and mixing that half of the substrate you should find your humidity will go up slightly and your tort will have a choice of temperature and moisture levels.

See if that helps your torts.

Give torts a chance! Send a tort to Congress. I'm sure it would be able to balance a budget better than what we have now!