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Cause of Sudden Death/Female RES

PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 4:09 pm
by ptcake
What could have caused this unexpected death? I found her in the water, limbs and head in swimming position, eyes clear and open.

Conditions:

Almost 3 years old. Housed with a male RES of same age & only slightly larger, but fed separately. Normal behavior w/exception of extreme basking for approx. 10 days prior to death. No loss of appetite and no visible signs of disease.

Discussion of possible causes may help new RES owners and will satisfy my need to understand.

Thank you.

PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 4:48 pm
by jozzep
Sorry to hear.This is one theory.It's very common and happens pretty often.....
The male was trying to mate,keeping the female underwater for an extended period of time,until she drowned.

PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 4:57 pm
by TheComputerGremlin
Another possibility would be egg retention and an egg exploded in her. I'm not familiar with it, so I don't know if any would have oozed out, but she'd be at the right age.

I would recommend taking the corpse in for a necropsy at the vet to find out cause of death, and then report back to us. We cannot speculate without more information.

PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 9:41 pm
by theartbook35
jozzep wrote:The male was trying to mate,keeping the female underwater for an extended period of time,until she drowned.


Uhh... What's the point of attempting to further your species, if you drown the woman expected to bare your children? Very good reason why males and females shouldn't live together.

The eyes open? In a swimming position? Some kind of shock maybe? If a turtle moves from a place that's too warm for them, to a place that is too cold for them, can the sudden change in temperature make them to go into shock, and die from it?

I'd still get a necropsy like Jax said.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 10:56 pm
by untsmurf
The constant basking might be due to some internal disease like RI or something.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:22 am
by mikee
ptc - My guess on the death is drowning if there were no marks of any kind. Of course, there could have been some other internal organ failure. The only other thing could be some sort of poison such as something in the food. That is just my guess again. m.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 12:18 pm
by theartbook35
I'm worried about the other turtle now.

To be on the safe side, maybe cleaning the whole tank, and everything in it, is in order.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 9:32 pm
by ptcake
Thank you for the helpful information and advice. The surviving male is quite active, aggressively nibbling anacharis and gulping rosy red minnows. While the female was "friendly", never shying away from my hand or my stares, I watch the male from a distance since when he sees me, he runs for cover. No need to worry about him. In fact, his behavior indicates he is happier living alone. I feel partly responsible for the death of the female RES if she died because of the male. However, her death will remain a mystery. An interesting point: When they were hatchlings, the male developed a vitamin A deficiency and I thought I'd lose him. I cured him. As both turtles grew, the female didn't get as large as the male. I fed them separately. She had a good appetite. We do what we can as RES owners; we do our best and sometimes, things just don't work out. Thanks for the discussion.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:02 pm
by theartbook35
Could've been genetics. Some turtles, even females, don't grow super fast. Mine don't.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 8:07 am
by Diamondbacks4Life
How big exactly were both turtles?

I find the drowning thing hard to beleive cause res do not hold onto the female in any way while mating. He is actually upside down or backwords being dragged. If male wants air he actually drags the female up with him and she can get air too very easy.

Drowing Females is more geared towards males have whole body weight on top of them.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 11:48 am
by jozzep
Painteds4life wrote:How big exactly were both turtles?

I find the drowning thing hard to beleive cause res do not hold onto the female in any way while mating. He is actually upside down or backwords being dragged. If male wants air he actually drags the female up with him and she can get air too very easy.

Drowing Females is more geared towards males have whole body weight on top of them.

It never happened to me......
I'm just advising on information i learned from other websites with lots of breeders.Some will not even keep males and females in the same tank because of this problem.
It doesn't happen "while" breeding,but when the male wants to mate and the female doesn't so he gets aggressive and won't give up.