- Joined
- Nov 23, 2014
- Messages
- 135
Current situation: Luna, whether picking up on my own or not, became very stressed the week before last-mainly from excessive activity/noise. I don’t know where to begin and thus is going to sound clumsy because I’m worried and there are too many issues. (Keep in mind though, there is no eye discharge, no runny poop, tounge a perfect pink and she’s eating up a storm.) Besides a few symptoms listed in paragraph below, this is what is happening with my Luna. a week ago I, had a wide eyed, strong, healthy tortoise. I was already dealing with her getting “spooked” too much lately whereas if she heard the wrong noises or a starnger came too close, she would be afraid to keep eating what she was eating or afraid to stay under the basking lamp or afraide to come out of her main “hide”, peeking out, waiting for predators. (I found the safest thing was to sit next to her, feed her and not walk into the other room and come back. Just sit calmly, cross my legs occasionally and watch her eat and drop more in front of her as he was done with the last. She gets too easily sidetracked with noise or what she thinks may be a threat. I can sidetrack her back to fun things like eating when this happens. Sometimes I use a trick to remove her from he main enclosure until she looks ike she tries to get back to it, I help her into it, put food down and she’s calm and eats.) The next occurance was suddenly (possibly from excessive burrowing), the originally dusty substrate that I thought settled after a few days weeks ago went super dusty and Luna even became the color of the substrate-it was even getting in her water dish and all of a sudden. As I order practcally overnight replacement substrate, she starts acting weird at times. The first was the wiping ofher right side of her head-I thought this was from some dry skin sticking out. (I also got a sprayer to “shower” her after her next soak before putting the new substrate in but the last couple days she is just not looking well, but not constantly. She will stand and stare when she hears a noise and is quite wide eyed. At one point though, she was opening her mouth twice though she wasn’t eating at tthe time. Her eyes were half open and one point even eating with her eyes closed, walking a few seconds with her eyes closed. My first thought was she was tired from being up all night when she was afraid to come out and excessive noises were in the house the night before. (She can act sleepy when she’s half asleep.) In the event she was getting too much uvb, maybe staring at it too much also as it’s the directon out from were she can excessively peer out from her hide, tonight I decided to take out temorarily the Powersun M.V. bulb and switched it for a shorter 100w incandescent, coupled by the 40w alternate bulb near to it (making the area just a couple of degrees warmer). Her eye occasionally (her right I’ve noticed) has this twitch and she keeps the eye closed. Moving along to symptoms-she’s sitting weirdly at times, today actually stuck her face doen into her substrate in between walking for 4 seconds as if to wipe her nose or comfort herself, she’s stretching and curving her neck differently than normally for no apparent reason at all but in between she’s acting like normal and eating like a pig, pooping normal stools. I bet if I picked her up and put her on the floor she’d be acting like normal, looking or a place to burrow. Is she getting a nervous twitch? Is she sick? I’m worried to death. Too many weird things and too many unusual circumstances. I’d love to take her to the vet but with the temeratures out, my car’s current passenger heat issue (it’s been low as -4 this week around here) and the fact she gets traumatized lately going from one part of the house to the other, let alone a 20 minute ride to the tort vet. My last comment here list Recent “environmental” and other circumstances: Luna having moved a component of a barrier I didn’t realise she was strong enough to, Luna recently tumbled approx 12”(?) and although slid through a narrow, somewhat curved area and landed on a very thick, cushioned surface, it’s not imposible she got a bruise in the process although I have seen no particular changes in agility or discomfort, etc. the days immedtely afterwards. 4 days ago, started a period of such severe outdoor record breaking cold weather overnight that the 1st floor multi-zone heating (where Luna is) though set at anywhere between 67 and 71, would not go higher once it got down to 61 degrees which it got to by 5:45m. When I got up 7 hours later, room temperature was fine but Luna’s never slept indoors in anything that low-anywhere. After 2 nights of Luna sleeping in temps 61-64 due to cold weather, I noticed just for a second something come out of her left nostril while she was eating-oherwise no nasal discharge. Anyway, in between looking like normal, she acts like she’s high and she acts like she’s suffering, i-n-t-e-r-m-i-t-t-a-n-t-l-y.
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