Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2018 6:48 pm Undigested Food, Lack of Appetite, and Throat Swelling
Hi all,
My turtle will be 27 at September's end and I've had her all this time, so I'm quite familiar with her personality and behaviour. She's usually very energetic, active, aggressive, and ravenous. She also has eggs again this season and has been passing them, laying about four or five this summer as far as I can tell. The last egg she laid was sometime on Fri. Jul. 6th.
This past Thurs. Jul. 12th, I noticed an odd dropping in her aquarium that morning. Instead of the normal look, parts of it looked like undigested meat (I feed her live feeder goldfish and earth worms as part of her diet). She oft eats her droppings before I can get to them, and it's not uncommon for her to regurgitate them up. She'll swell her throat, and after a second, her eaten poop pops out again, at which point she immediately devours it again. When I noticed this odd dropping on Thursday morn, she was swelling her throat and I didn't think much of it. I went to work and came home to find her basking on her raft, also pretty normal, though her poop was still there, untouched. Not normal for her.
When I began setting up to feed her (I feed her in a separate aquarium to keep her primary living environment cleaner), she wasn't taking any interest at all, which is a bit odd. She knows the set up process and normally gets very excited. I placed her in her little feeding aquarium, and started feeding her, and she wasn't hungry. She did pick at bit at her live food and ultimately ate it, but kept spitting it up.
So something's up, as the day before she was her usual ravenous self.
Yesterday she ate a little of her pellets, and again slowly ate the live food, but had trouble getting it down. She seemed more active as well, which was good.
Today I cleaned her aquarium, doing a full water change, and there was a good bit of what appeared to be undigested worm or fish scattered about. I removed it all both by siphon or by hand. When I went to feed her, she wouldn't touch anything. No live food, nothing. She did poop though, and this time it looked normal. When I put her back in her freshly cleaned aquarium, she started swelling her throat and either trying to expel something, or perhaps trying to swallow something.
She seems to be breathing normally, I've detected no difference there, so I don't think it's a respiratory issue. Since she's been passing her eggs, I don't think she's egg bound. She's still swimming and moving around, as well as climbing off and on her raft (and basking), so I don't think she's had an egg break inside her, but I'm honestly not 100% sure what's wrong.
I'm concerned, but not panicked yet. Right now my game plan is to give it a few more days, and if she's not improving I'll take her to my vet.
I'm posting to see if anyone might be able to help and e-diagnose what's wrong with her. Right now I suspect she either has some kind of blockage, or, given the several pieces of undigested food I found, perhaps ate something that didn't agree with her and she's stomach sick. I do have gravel in her aquarium, but it's all large and not able to fit in her mouth. While not impossible, I don't expect she's eaten any of it.
Thanks. Apologies if the above is a little disjointed.
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Juxtapose13
"Outstanding. Now all we need is a deck of cards." Cpl. Hicks, Aliens.