Urgent Care :: any advice -

[LadyBloodRose]

Ok I been treating a sick hatchling res for a vitimin defency, which caused alota swelling in the lil guy. Yesterday an last night he had shown great improvement after 4 days treatment all the swellin had gone down cept for his eyes.
His water temps been staying evrry warm to help boosthis immune system. An he's been getting at teh adviceof teh vet soaked in lil water, some pedilyte, an poly vi sol to help his condition. Well he's been eating great an everything has anice heat lightn basking area n has been being taken out every day for at least 2 hours of natural sunlightwhen its nice an warm out.

Well when i checked on him lil whle ago he was up n th highst point f his basking area, an looked dried up, like he was dehydrated, an i noticed that the loose skin that had beens wollen by fluid had shrivveled up an turned alost black in some places -_- he couldn't open his eyes at first but after being placed in a warm water withhsi solutions an his eyedrps he has opened his eyes an even eaten. Myc onsern is could the draining of the fuild in hisbody have caused a sudden dehydration? an that cause the skint o look that way? hes moving around an acting normal atm. I'm justc urrious as to what could be causing that or if its what i suspected.

[marisa]

The loss of a significant amount of fluid without replacement certainly can cause dehydration. What's the temp of the basking area and how close is the highest point to the light? How long had he been basking (about)? With the skin becoming loose, the blackening of the skin and the eyelids not wanting to open it sounds like it's too warm and he got dried out. Since he's been ill and is probably weak, if the basking area temp is too warm, the heat could have knocked him out. It's possible for a hatchling, especially a sick one, to become overcome by too much heat and not be able to move, and they can get "fried" that way. It's good you saw this and hydrated him. It's good he's eating, too. I'd check the basking area temp and perhaps lower it just a bit.

[LadyBloodRose]

the temp is around 80 at the highest point, it goes up an down a few degrees depedning on the temp in here. He doesn;t usualy come all the way outa his water when he basks normaly its a few inches, i;ve no idea how long he had been out today as i didn;t check on him immeditely when i got up, so iw ould hav to guess he decided to crawl out at some point in the night.

I was checkin him over a few min ago, n it seems that the "black" skin is starting to shed a bit, i've also noticed now hes got a few pitted rough spots on his plastron an just called the vet i spoke to, an shes advicsed me to dry dock him for alilw hile with some neosporin on his plastron as apprently he's now got a bacterial infection there now that the other has started clearing up :S this lil guy is just gona be a world of work it seems.

Its to cool for me to take him outside today -__ i think the high is suposed to be 55 which wouldn't be to bad cept the wind is blowing -_- so looks like he'll just get some good old artifical uvb instead :S

he is definately eating right now, he just gulped down 2 of the reptomin baby food sticks.

[LadyBloodRose]

ok putting my pride aside, an the fact that i can not find the information online myself -_-.

how long would you generaly dry dock a turtle? an hour?

I've never had to actualy deal with dry dockingin all the years i've had turtles :S an i can't seemt o find any info on it -_-

[DavidY]

I know some have dry-docked their RES overnight before, but usually they can dry-dock as long as necessary with like 10 or 15 minute soaks in the water for feeding/defecating/rehydration every few hours. But someone else should be able to tell you better (I haven't experienced it before). That is good news that he's eating though.

[LadyBloodRose]

yeai was happy that he is still eating thats something that conserned me, if he hadn.t of eaten i'd have prioblem been freaking out XD I figure an hour or so woud be good enoughf or teh neosporin to set in, wipe off any acess an settele him back in his tank till later, the vet realy didn;t say how often to anything just to dry doc him to do it.
With as delicate of health that he's had i dun wanan over stress him to badly.

[DavidY]

That sounds like a good idea if it's just to let the antibiotic soak in.

[SpotsMama]

For a hatchling I'd be reluctant to dry dock for such long periods as for a grown turtle without hydration.

The recommendation when treating a shell disease (from my vet and also from what I've read) is to dry dock around the clock for a couple of weeks with about 30 minutes in the water a day to eat and hydrate. My turtle is a 7" 5 year old male but I couldn't bring myself to treat him so harshly when he had some injuries on his plastron, so I let him swim around for a couple of hours a day and he did heal up. The daily routine was that I'd put him in his aquarium around mid day for a couple hours and feed him, then I'd take him out and soak him in Nolvasan solution for 15 minutes, wait around 30 minutes for him to dry, then rub on silver sulfadiazine cream and put him back in his dry dock container until the next day. I left a little bowl of water in the dry dock container with him in case he wanted to get a drink. I made sure the little water bowl was too small for him to climb into. I've read that other people have dry docked their adult turtles the same way when treating shell rot.

I also sometimes dry dock Spot overnight when he hasn't been basking enough (in my opinion). He's had a long history of fungus on his shell in part due to not drying out regularly and I don't want an infection to get re-established. I've heard of others doing this too. When his infection was active I washed him, sometimes daily, with a hibiclense solution followed by dry docking overnight.

For a hatchling, I'd worry about dehydration, just like you are. Also I'd worry about stressing a little turtle that's just been sick. I don't know how flexible your schedule is, but could you keep him in a dry container for three or four hours then put him in water for a few hours, then repeat the cycle? For overnight, take him out of the water and let him dry thoroughly then rub on some antibiotic cream and put him in dry dock. This will give the antibiotic cream a chance to work overnight. Do this for at least a couple of days. If the dry dock container (I use a large rubbermaid tub with a lid and a couple of towels on the bottom) is quiet and warm and dark, he'll just sleep while he's in there which isn't a bad thing.

Keep an eye on the plastron. If it seems to be getting worse I'd get some better medicine than Neosporin. If your vet agrees, I think silver sulfadiazine is wonderful (brand name silverdyne, only availble with prescription). Nolvasan (you can buy it on-line or from a vet) is also a wonderful antiseptic for soaking.

For minor skin injuries, I've heard of rubbing on an antibiotic cream and keeping the turtle dry for an hour or so for the antibiotic to be absorbed.

[SpotsMama]

By the way, a temp of 80 degrees on the basking platform is not too high - it's actually low. Usually the temp on the basking platform needs to be up around 88 to entice the turtle to bask. Maybe it was the illness that caused your little turtle to be lethargic and then dehydrate.

[LadyBloodRose]

possibly could have been the illness. I think a cupple hours dry dock an a cupple in water will work fine. I'm home just about 24/7 cept for usualy weekends I go t a freinds, but she would let me bring him an his setup if i needed to. I figured the temp was ctualy alil low, its only a 50watt bulb since its such a small tank I didn't want it to get to hot, but it appears I may have to actualy get a higher wattage cuz i can;t move it any closer to his basking area.
His heater in the water seems to be being a paini n my backside -_- i've gota get a new thermontor to go in it this weekend if i can get to walmart or the petstore the old one got droped eailer an had an accident -_-
So at the moment i am havin to do his water by feel. I know at night its been being warmer then durring the day. I'm havin to be careful dry docking him we don't have heat out here yet hopefuly that willbe fixed by this weekend.

thanks for the advice spotsmoma

Right now the bit of infection that i am seeing on his shell isn't bad infact i cought it just as its starting. So hopefuly its cought soon enough that i wont have to stress him to badly.

Would a sulfer dip help any with the infection?

[SpotsMama]

On sulfa dip - sure give it a try. Just follow directions. The only criticism I've heard of it is it's pretty mild so it isn't a cure all, but if your turt's problem is minor it might do the trick.

[LadyBloodRose]

I'll see about picking some up this weekend an maybe give it a try it was the only thing i didn't buywhen i went out n got stuff for him lol i knew i shoulda got it for some reason!