Urgent Care :: worried about defecation?

[stephpally]

what color is the turtle's poop supposed to be?

when i got my new baby res, they ate green food pellets and their poop was green. i recently switched their diet to a tannish colored food pellet which has more nutrition than the first one did, and now the poop is red. im worried the red color in it is blood or something, but maybe it is from switching foods?? should i be worried??

[marisa]

Their poop can take on the color of what they've eaten. My RES's poop has varied from light brown to almost black in color depending on what he's been fed (and skins of veggies like red peppers sometimes come out looking very much like what went in). Don't know about the red color-- is the stool totally red? Have they been given anything like shrimp? Do they appear healthy otherwise?

[stephpally]

no, they havent eaten any shrimp. and one of them appears very healthy while the other one had white patches on his shell the second day we got him, but it seems to be neither getting worse nor better. although the one with the patches wasnt very active when we first got him, its been two weeks and he is acting very much like our other healthy turtle.

[marisa]

The white patches--are they chalky and does the white come off if you gently rub it? Or is the white part of the shell? Are they all over the shell or in one area. Is there any odor? Can you post a picture of the shell?

What kind of set-up do you have them in? (Tank size, lighting, filter, basking area, etc.)?

Is the poop completely red? Is there anything else they could have eaten?

[stephpally]

The white patches do not come off when I rub them. I suspected shell softening? So that's why I switched them to that new food because it has more calcium than the old one did. They are not part of the shell because the first day we got our RES, it did not look like that but the very next day it had white patches. My two baby RES are in a 20 gallon tank with a full spectrum/UBV? light directed at the basking area, which is a floating turtle dock. I haven't gotten a filter for my res yet because I want to save up for a very good one that will last even when I switch them to bigger tanks, but I change and clean the tank every other day. It's a lot but I do not want them to get sick on me!! I don't have a digital camera so I can't post pictures sorry! and there is no odor on the patches of the shell, nor is it softer than the healthy turtle.

and the poop is not completely red. it's like there's a red "filling" with a "clear" bubble around it. IT'S WEIRD. and im worried..

[marisa]

I really don't know what the red could be if they haven't eaten anything that color. If it continues and/or you suspect internal bleeding, I'd take them to a reptile vet. Do you know if it's coming from both of them or just one?

As for the white patches, you said it was part of the shell, the shell wasn't soft, and there's no odor. Without a pic it's difficult to even guess. Do the edges of the scutes/plates where the white areas are look like their lifting up at all? (It's possible they could be going to shed.) If you take them to a herp vet for the poop, it would be a good time to have the shell checked out as well, especially since you wrote that the turtle wasn't acting like the other one initially. If you don't know of a herp vet near you, there's a sticky on locating one. Let us know what happens.