hi all,
this is my first tortoise and it was adopted. It is a male star and he should be 10+years already. From all my readings from the internet, the previous owner had him kept wrongly. He is kept in a small plastic bin and his bedding is newspaper. He is being fed tortoise pellets and vegetables. kept indoors with no uvb, no calcium supplements etc. i got him just a month ago.
He is now also kept indoor as i live in a high rise building. Also in a plastic container but much bigger then his previous one. His bedding is cypress mulch and a uvb light attached. I took it to the vet for a check up and the vet says he should be ok. but coz there some unknow history the vet was unable to really tell me if anything wrong. but she say i should give him calcium and he is too skinny. he weigh 680g when i got him. Now he is 757g. A few questions:
1. His back legs are not normal. According to the owner(had passed away)'s family, when the owner got it, it was walking fine until don't know which year he started dragging his legs and from then on he does not walk but drags his legs. His shell is still hard, a little bumpy but i don't know if it's normal as stars usually have bumpy shell? Does he has metabolic bone disease? what else can i do for him? for the past one month i noticed that his left leg seem to had gotten a little better. it seems stronger as he sometimes could stand a bit higher on this leg but his left leg is still the same but overall he is still dragging his back legs to move around. Will he ever recover to walk normally? Anyone had the same problem also?
2. I intend to start supplementing calcium to his food but there are different types of it. should i get the one that has d3 or without? As he now has the uvb light, if i get the calcium with d3, will it be too much d3?
3. He has a small dent in his shell. will this recover as well?
Looking forward to replies. thks.
this is my first tortoise and it was adopted. It is a male star and he should be 10+years already. From all my readings from the internet, the previous owner had him kept wrongly. He is kept in a small plastic bin and his bedding is newspaper. He is being fed tortoise pellets and vegetables. kept indoors with no uvb, no calcium supplements etc. i got him just a month ago.
He is now also kept indoor as i live in a high rise building. Also in a plastic container but much bigger then his previous one. His bedding is cypress mulch and a uvb light attached. I took it to the vet for a check up and the vet says he should be ok. but coz there some unknow history the vet was unable to really tell me if anything wrong. but she say i should give him calcium and he is too skinny. he weigh 680g when i got him. Now he is 757g. A few questions:
1. His back legs are not normal. According to the owner(had passed away)'s family, when the owner got it, it was walking fine until don't know which year he started dragging his legs and from then on he does not walk but drags his legs. His shell is still hard, a little bumpy but i don't know if it's normal as stars usually have bumpy shell? Does he has metabolic bone disease? what else can i do for him? for the past one month i noticed that his left leg seem to had gotten a little better. it seems stronger as he sometimes could stand a bit higher on this leg but his left leg is still the same but overall he is still dragging his back legs to move around. Will he ever recover to walk normally? Anyone had the same problem also?
2. I intend to start supplementing calcium to his food but there are different types of it. should i get the one that has d3 or without? As he now has the uvb light, if i get the calcium with d3, will it be too much d3?
3. He has a small dent in his shell. will this recover as well?
Looking forward to replies. thks.