Sudden death

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tpjhkrm

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My sweet white leopard has suddenly died. I am VERY upset about it. Especially since I have no idea what happened. I am a long time turtle and tortoise lover. I currently have and have in the past had several species. This one was my favorite. It was very active and would "run" whenever it seen the food coming.

It was approximately 4-5 years old. It was acting normally and then we came home last night and it was dead. Its head and legs were all extended, its neck was extremely swollen and the eyes were sunken. I hope I never see anything like that again it was a terrible sight. I left it in its house overnight and this morning there was fluid under its head and it smelled horrible.

Any thoughts? I have been searching the Internet since last night. I seen posts about similar situations but no answers. It hadn't been outside, it had proper diet, lighting, substrate and enclosure.
 

wellington

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So sorry for your loss, that's just terrible. I have a leopard, two years old. I would be devastated.
 

Tom

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Sounds like poisoning or overheating. Just speculating here.
 

exoticsdr

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I'm with Tom...can also add anaphylaxis to the list. Look closely at plants, substrate, heat sources etc... doc
 

tortoise_man1

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I am so sorry for your loss. :(

What kind of substrate are you using, your tort may have swallowed some a while back.

if a tortoise ingests anything that can block its intestines it can be deadly.

ingesting something bad will not harm your tortoise right away, it will take a while of being fed without knowing what has happend and then their intestines will in a way pop from the build up of food.

I am not trying to be ofensive, I am only trying to give an idea because i have read about this happening to other people.
 

deadheadvet

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Always need to have a necropsy done. When a contagion is a possibility, needs to be considered.
Likely too late at this point unless the tortoise was refrigerated. Acute death could be from ruptured yolk sac if female. Lightening strike does happen if outdoors. Toxic plants, there are also viral and parasitic possibilities as well. Sorry about your loss.
 

tpjhkrm

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There are no plants in the large enclosure that it shared with a golden greek of approximately the same size. My other tortoise looks fine but so did the one that died. It only ate large green leaf lettuce and Mazuri. It was soaked in the bathtub weekly in addition to a large water dish in the enclosure. The substrate is ZooMed coconut fiber and timothy hay. Their food was put into a large flat plastic tray that they walked into. That way it wasn't directly mixed with the substrate. It has been that way for several years now and never had a problem. There is a ceramic heat emitter (for nighttime) and a UVA/UVB/Heat bulb both on one end. Their hide box was on the other end.
 

tpjhkrm

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It was a Hi White/Ivory leopard and was the most beautiful tortoise I have ever seen.
 

CourtneyG

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Do you think someone broke in and poisoned your tort. A necropsy will help explain so much.
 

BeeBee*BeeLeaves

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It could have been mixing species. The leopard and Greek, two different species, two different parts of the world, together with bacterias and more that may be foreign to one or the other. The leopard may have been more vulnerable to a bacteria that was introduced by the Greek. Was the Greek a wild caught tortoise? I read somewhere that a keeper lost over 20 tortoises of many kinds that way. Introduced a new one without quarantine time and within two weeks they were all dead. Made me sad to read it. The loss of your leopard makes me sad, too. Super sad because I know this is painful. I am so very sorry this happened to you.
 
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