Poorly spur thighed tortoise

AndyTort

New Member
Joined
May 10, 2018
Messages
3
Location (City and/or State)
Kent, England
Hi everyone,

First post here so thought I would introduce myself – I’m Laura and I live in the UK (Kent). My second post below goes into the problems I have been having in detail but as it’s massive, I thought I would summarise here - I have a very poorly spur-thighed tortoise at the moment and I’m here for some advice please on what I can do to improve my husbandry to support him in getting better.

He’s been to 2 different exotic vets already; 1 recommended him to be put to sleep after 2 weeks hospitalisation there (he wasn’t eating at the time) and the 2nd opinion vet did not agree and sent him home with us with meds and advice on how to get him better.

Since coming back home he is now eating very well but other than this he is unfortunately very, very sleepy and lethargic and this is why I’m worried.

The trouble I’ve got is that he’s never been kept indoors before so the indoor enclosure we’ve currently got for him when the weather is bad is very makeshift and unsuitable. I’m aware we need to get a proper one built for him ASAP so we can monitor temps etc but I need advice please on the size, materials it needs to be built from, substrate.. basically everything.

I haven’t got measurements for him at the moment which I know will be needed for the enclosure size but I’ll attach photos of him to give you some idea of his size in the meantime.

As I said, my second post below goes into much more detail – I just didn’t want to make my first one too long and unreadable.

Thanks in advance.

Laura
 

AndyTort

New Member
Joined
May 10, 2018
Messages
3
Location (City and/or State)
Kent, England
Ok so my story begins two and a half years ago when my mum moved away to somewhere without a garden and her 2 adult spur-thighed tortoises (1 male, 1 female) came to live with me and my husband. My mum had owned them for nearly 40 years (I’m 33 so they’ve been in my life forever) and they were both fully grown when they came to live with her so we can only guess as to how old they are.

Unfortunately, the female tortoise (who had displayed some symptoms of ill health – runny nose etc – on and off for quite a few years before coming to live with us) had to be put to sleep last summer after being diagnosed with liver failure. She’d been hospitalised in the vets (exotic specialists) for a couple of weeks to try and treat it but nothing they had tried worked so in the end we had to make the difficult decision to let her go. It was absolutely awful, I cried for weeks afterwards.

This year the other tortoise who has never shown signs of ill-health before unfortunately came out of hibernation really poorly. I now know from all the reading up I’ve done over the last few weeks that this is most likely errors that we’ve made in the run-up to hibernation as well as hibernating him in a shed that is the most likely the cause of the health problems he’s been having (and quite possibly the other tortoise too) but I had just followed on from what my mum used to do in the mistaken belief that that was the right way.

Upon waking from hibernation last month, he had a runny nose – something he’d never had before. I took him to the vets literally the same day and they examined him and said he looked reasonably ok overall but diagnosed him with mild stomatitis after looking in his mouth. They kept him in to treat it and then phoned after a couple of days for me to come and take him home. Thinking that all must be ok, I collected him but it soon became apparent upon taking him home that he still wasn’t right – not moving / sleeping all day, no interest in food etc. So we took him back to the vets and they said they would keep him in again, give him fluids and supportive treatment to try and bring him around and a blood test to see if there were any underlying issues. The blood test came back revealing he had ‘liver trouble’ (that’s exactly how the nurse described it to me over the phone but I don’t know what the specific issue with his liver was). Anyway, long story short, they kept him in for 2 weeks and he wasn’t showing any signs of improvement or interest in eating so they called me and said they had tried everything they could and that the only thing they could do was another blood test to see if anything had improved or to have him put to sleep.

After hearing this information, I went into ultra-research mode online where I found another exotic vet in my local area who had successfully treated tortoises with liver problems. With the previous vet having said there was essentially nothing more they could do, I thought there was no harm taking him to see this other vet for a second opinion. So on 28th April, we collected him from the first vet and took him straight to see the second. We took his clinical history with us and the first thing the vet said when looking at his blood results was that his liver results were actually ok but it was his kidney results that weren’t quite right. She also weighed him, did another blood test, faecal examination and X-ray. The good points were that she said his weight was good and everything on the X-ray looked normal. She also messaged me a couple of days later with the blood test results and said that all the parameters had improved since his previous blood test which was obviously good news. However, the faecal examination revealed there to be parasite eggs so she gave him a worming treatment whilst we were there and bubbles also started coming out of his nose whilst we were there so she gave him an antibiotic injection (Baytril) and 4 follow up injections to take home with us. The one thing she did say was that he looked very, very dehydrated so we were recommended to give him 5 reptoboost baths a day (for 5-10 mins at a time) to gradually be reduced in frequency when he started improving. She also said to keep offering food even though at the time he was showing no interest because obviously at least it would be there for him to try if he wanted it.

So we came back and have done everything she said and the good news is that there have been signs of some improvement. Specifically, he started eating again a couple of days after coming home and his appetite has actually been very good since. Also his urates have turned from yellow / green (which the vet said was a sign of how dehydrated he was) to pure white. They have been pure white the last 3 times he has passed them.

However, what is worrying me (and this is where I need some help / advice please!) is that he is very, very lethargic. He is still sleeping and barely moving most of the day - the only time he wakes up is to eat or when I give him a bath. I’ve gone down to giving him 1 bath a day because last week he started expelling undigested food every time I soaked him which I read was a sign of oversoaking. His faeces outside of soaking are also on the loose side (but much improved over when he first came home in terms of colour). I know it’s a bit disgusting but I have been taking photos of every single motion he passes so I can monitor them so I can post them here if you think it would help. The other worrying symptom is that he has been doing what I can only describe as a yawning motion which I’ve never seen him do before. I looked it up and was worried it might be ‘gaping’ but he’s not doing it constantly – I just catch him doing it every now and again like he’s doing one huge yawn. Other than this his mouth is closed and he’s had no runny nose since he’s been home so not sure if this is of significance or not.

In terms of housing / substrate etc – at my mum’s he (and the other tortoise) had free roam of her small garden. Our garden here is not secure so we had a large wooden enclosure built the first summer they came out of hibernation. The enclosure sits on top of a soil and then we’ve also put paving slabs, rocks etc within it as well. The enclosure has a built in shaded area and there’s also a wooden house that he can go inside as well.

Up until this year, he had never been kept inside before and, as such, we had no indoor set up for him. However, the vet said that we shouldn’t be putting him outside (unless it’s hot and sunny) all the while he is poorly so at the moment he has a very makeshift set up in our lounge made up of a square metal rabbit pen (from Pets at Home), newspaper and reptile carpet, a basking bulb and UVB light. However, it’s all very bodge job and this is why I’m here. I know that in order for him to stand any chance of getting better our husbandry needs to be on point. As such, I would really please like some advice on how to build a proper indoor enclosure for him – dimensions, temperatures, substrate, everything we need to do basically.

In terms of diet – at my mum’s they were mainly fed spring green, cucumber, apple and lettuce (yes I know this is not great) and they had free roam of the garden which would have contained some weeds. At the moment, we are feeding him dandelion, bristly oxtongue (we have loads of this growing in our garden and I have seen online that it’s safe), kale, lambs lettuce, spring green and coriander. Again, I know we need to branch this out much more so I would like more advice on that as well please – we did plant some ‘tortoise mix seeds’ in the garden earlier this year but nothing much has sprouted from them yet so if anyone has any advice on best places to look for safe weeds that would also be much appreciated.

Sorry for such a long post but I thought it would be best to give as much information as possible. I’ve just finished doing a degree so these last few weeks have been pretty hectic trying to get all my work done as well as look after him as best I can. Now that I’m finished, I’ve got pretty much all my time to dedicate to this – I will do anything to get him better - so any advice will be much appreciated.

When I look at him during his down times, I wonder if we did the right thing in not letting the other vet put him to sleep and maybe we are just prolonging his suffering. But then when he’s awake, he will eat like there’s no tomorrow and it’s this that makes me hopeful that maybe there’s just some chance he will pull through this – I just need all the help I can get in trying to make this happen!

Thanks again in advance (and for still reading if you’ve made it this far!)

Laura
 

AndyTort

New Member
Joined
May 10, 2018
Messages
3
Location (City and/or State)
Kent, England
IMG_8664.JPG IMG_8547.JPG

The top photo is from Sunday - we let him have a supervised wander at the top of the garden where there are lots of weeds growing but just stayed in that one spot.

The second photo is from when we took him to the second vet. I'll try and get proper measurements of him tomorrow.

Oh and as you've probably guessed from my user name - his name is Andy!
 

Kasia

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2015
Messages
807
Location (City and/or State)
Poland
Hi :)
To sum up, Andy is sluggish but eating, pooping and peeing?? What was the reason for the first Vet wanting to put him down? Is he swollen in any way? What medication was used to deworm and what parasites were found? In some cases it can lead to wiping out most of good microbial gut flora and long term loose stool issues. Was a second fecal examination done? I would still soak him daily or every other day, if you see it makes him more active it’s good.
Constant yawning is not normal, it’s a indication of mouth breathing, so I would check that, redo X-ray and blood - if the antibiotics improved his condition maybe it’s worth giving him another round (maybe not baytril). Tortoise take a loooong time to recover but from my experience it is worth giving them the time. I don’t think he is in a condition for euthanasia. Go back to the Vet and ask for additional testing. @Yvonne @zovick @Tom ???
 
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