Urgent Care :: Mr.T's pooping out ROCKS!

[tinkersumx]

I brought Mr T in from his pond yesterday. I wanted to keep him in a rubbermaid container for the next few months to keep an eye on and encourage him to bask (hasn't for months... his water is heated and the weather has been kinda chilly... I wouldn't want to get out either). Well he just wasn't having it, he wouldn't calm down, just climbed & clawed at the sides.

I put him back in the pond and was emptying the container and noticed his little poops looked hard. I rinsed them off and realized they were little pebbles he had passed (aprox 5 pebbles).

I thought I had been very careful about not putting small rocks in there but I think the came from a water lilly I put in there about 6 months ago.

I'm going to make a vet appt for thursday, any advice until then?

[megcornell]

Just keep watching him to make sure he's still moving his bowels. And scoop out any rocks he passes so he doesn't re-digest them.

[SpotsMama]

It's really good that he's passing the rocks. When he stops passing them then it's time to worry. It would be good if the vet could x ray him to see how much is still left inside.

I've heard of turtles passing gravel for months after they'd eaten it, so keep watching the bottom of the tank.

Last summer I put a water lily in Spot's pond and noticed there was gravel in the container. I scooped out the gravel and mud at the top of the lily and replaced it with river rocks.

Did Mr. T leave the water lily alone? Spot ate his - a lily pad at a time.

[tinkersumx]

He's back in the pond, which makes it hard to keep track of what he's passing. He really HATED the inside container. Do you guys think I should keep him inside for a while even though he flips out? The main reason I brought him in was to encourage him to bask... he literally hasn't basked once in the past 3 or 4 months... Now with the pebbles, I would like to keep a closer eye on him, but also don't want to stress him out.

[SpotsMama]

I think you should bring him back in. He'll calm down in a few days. Spot let me know he was unhappy when he first came back in too, but he settled after three or four days. It's ok for a turtle to go for days or even weeks without basking but if it stretches into months then it's going to result in problems like shell fungus. It will also give you time to think about how to protect him from the gravel in the pond.

[marisa]

If the weather's been chilly and you don't think he's been basking for a long while, I have to ask---why did you put him back outside? He's likely reacting to the new environment (being inside), but he'll get used to it.

Is his indoor home big enough for him? If you don't already, put some fake plants for him to hide in. I'd also not have the tank/container in a place where there's a lot of traffic, since he's probably not used to having people around all the time. Make sure he's got good lighting and the temps in a range to encourage him to bask (basking area 88-90F, water temp at least 10 degrees cooler.