General Care Discussion :: Gomie and her shell......

[grey goose]

Today Gomie decided to cooperate and sit still while I took pictures of her godawful shell. What a mess!



But at least she's starting to shed. This all started last year after she snapped out of her SAD episode (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and started eating again. I must admit that I was overdoing it with the pellets for a short time, being so happy that she was back to her old self again.
Now she's consuming large quantities of cuttlebone and basking a lot. When she's not doing that, she's trying to rub against everything in the tank. Last night she had Beaker trapped in the corner on the resting ramp and was furiously rubbing against her! Beaks finally had enough and escaped by climbing over her.
Here you can see one of the scutes starting to lift:



Someone recently asked for an example of pyramiding, well here it is, in a mild form. But it looks like the scutes are going to come off whole and I'm hoping they will smooth out a little.




But it looks like she's going to have to live with having pointy marginals for some time to come. Also notice how they are overlapping:




They are also overlapping at the rear on the second row (sub-caudal?).



The top ones look like they are going to pop off in one piece:



I'll post some more pics after she sheds......

[scripta_elegans]

It doesn't look awful! She just needs to shed, and stop harassing Beaker. I am afraid that harassing Beaker the Biter, or using her as a scratching post, might prove to be far more awful for her health in the long run.

[Tiny]

Grey goose- this is so helpful to me.

Tiny has been on her low pellet high veggie diet for 3 weeks now, and her shell looks very similar with the sticking up scute thing. I wasn't sure if it was peeling intil I saw your pictures, so I feel so much better now.

Thanks for sharing. Those are great pictures, and she has nice colors too. Can't wait to see what she looks like afterwards.

How long do you think it will take, and are they supposed to come off in whole peices like fake finger nails???

Tiny

[grey goose]

Hi Tiny. Well she's been like this for at least 8 months now. When she started eating again, she became ravenous, and I mistakenly played along. Then she had this huge growth spurt with her shell trying to catch up.....I'm guessing that's why her shell got all distorted with all those ridges and pointy scutes.
On a normal turtle (Gomie has never been normal) it could take a few to several weeks and they should come off whole, not flaky or in pieces. If they do come off in thin, flaky pieces it could be a lack of calcium in their diet.

scripta, with all the harassment Beaks has put up with from Gomie and B.D. you would think someone would have lost a limb by now but Beaker has never shown any aggression ever......until I stick my hand in there. Then she starts stalking me.

[steve]

I've had more than my share of shell problems and Gomie looks good. The only bits of advice I can offer are to make sure there is no gunk building up in the over lapping scutes. Retained scutes are tricky because they take much longer to shed and are not translucent, so you can not monitor progress or see if there is anything going on underneath. The marginals do take a long time to come off, they were the last pieces to come off for me.

[grey goose]

Lately I've been using an old, soft toothbrush around the edges. Not much work for me, I just hold it against her shell and Gomie does the rest. Dancing and running around in circles on the resting ramp while Beaker looks on, clearly confused.

[BullDog]

Lol @ Scratching post Beaker

This is actually very interesting for me, because that is very similar to what Frankie's shell looks like. However, hers isn't nearly as brilliant in colour as Gomez. Frankie has pointy marginals at the back. Her vertebral scutes are also lifting at the edges, but seem still very strongly attached everywhere else.

So the pointy/overlapping marginals can be caused by a growth spurt? I never thought about that before now...

[grey goose]

Well, the growth spurt came on because I started overfeeding. Her shell couldn't keep up......I cut back on the pellets, but the damage was done.
Now it's taking forever for her to shed.
It looks like Frankie is holding onto her scutes tightly. Is she basking, eating cuttlebone and getting UVB?

[BullDog]

Yup, she eats up the cuttlebone as fast as I can put it in there. And she spends usually about half her day basking.
Keep in mind I've only had her for about 3 months, and she's fully grown. I posted a while ago about shedding, because she has a bit of mineral buildup on her shell too. I think because she's a mature gal, it'll take a while for her scutes to shed. I've been keeping an eye on it though, of course. She's pretty mellow, so she has no problem with me have a good look at her shell while she's basking.

[marisa]

That really doesn't look like pyramiding to me. The scutes need to shed. Personally, in that first pic, some of those scutes look like they would have been long gone if I had my hands on her.

[scripta_elegans]

Whew! That's a relief for Gomie. As far as you getting tagged occasionally by the Beak, well that's just part of the excitement of having turtles! I'd love to see footage of Gomie doing the toothbrush dance.

[Tiny]

I can't get Tiny to like the tooth brush. How did you get Gomie to like it- maybe I'm brushing too hard in the wrong way?

[grey goose]

I can't get Tiny to like the tooth brush. How did you get Gomie to like it- maybe I'm brushing too hard in the wrong way?

I started off by just gently scratching her shell with my nails. She loves that, especially along the lower edges of the scutes. Then while I was rubbing one side of her shell, I would rub the other side with the brush.
Some turts don't like having their shells rubbed. Beaker enjoys it for about 10 seconds before she either runs away or spins around and tries to put the bite on me!

marisa, I think those ridges would have turned into layers if I kept shoveling pellets into her mouth. Odd thing is, each scute flattens out as it goes up and some of them are indented. I'm just hoping each scute pops off in one piece.

scripta, I'll have to see if I can borrow one of those video camera machines......maybe I can add some disco music to the footage.

[SpotsMama]

Goose, vitamin e is supposed to help with scute shedding. Here's some foods containing vitamin e that Gomie will probably like (since she likes everything):

Tomato
Sweet potato
Turnip greens
Blueberries
Apple skin

[grey goose]

They won't touch sweet potato but they like all the rest. It's been awhile since I gave them blueberries (have you checked the prices lately??). I'll pick some up on the way home......