General Care Discussion :: skin shedding normal? and the great escape.

[chirp]

hey everyone...
been taking are of our new adult female (rescue) and noticed her skin (not shell, skin) peels A LOT. like she's shedding like a snake. is this normal? we do have uvb lights for her (1 reptiglo 5.0 36 watt and 1 repti glo 2.0 36 watt). we also bring her outside about 1-3x per week.

she shed even before we set her up in her new fabulous 125g home with the uvb.

also, the other day we left her outside just to get some sun and see if she has eggs (we don't feel 'em, she won't let us really search yet) but she is 7 years old and according to the old owner, has never laid. well don't you know, she escaped! we found her THE NEXT DAY basking in the parking lot. do you think she could have laid eggs in a location of her choice over night? how long does it take them to lay eggs?

thanks!

[LeslieMW]

ah you are lucky you found her!!

oh and my turtle's will shed alot if the water is too warm. how warm is your water?

[ScrewZoo]

Shedding skin alot is due to overfeeding... Watch how much she gets, limit it.

[BullDog]

I've heard of RES coming from poor conditions into better ones will shed a lot of skin.
RES normally shed their skin, but warm water temperatures can cause excess shedding.

Sounds like she's getting plenty of UVB.

When you take her outside, NEVER let her out of your sight. RES are notorious escape artists, and next time you may not be so lucky and find her.

As for eggs, is she exhibiting any other signs? Restlessness? Excessive basking? Trying to get out of the tank or digging with the back feet?

[chirp]

her water was warm until a few days ago when we told the warm water and tank change was also preventing her from basking. so we lowered it. now it is a cool 74. (was 82).

we don't feed her all that much. about 3 tablespoons of H&H veggie pellets every other day. 4 leaves of red leaf (or other lettuce) every day and maybe, every two weeks or so, some tomato with the skin peeled off (like 1/6 of a large slicing tomato.)

we know we are supposed to feed her every other day...but for the last seven years her owner fed her exorbitant amounts of food every day. we are trying to wean her off eating so much.

as for restlessness, trying to escape...that ended for a little while when we put her in the bigger tank and started letting her out. but it's back.

and as for basking a lot? i have no idea how much basking needs to be done, so i wouldn't know. usually she'll hop up on land around 8-9 am and come down a couple of times throughout the day. coming down for good around 6 or 7. i've never seen her try to dig with back legs.

as per letting her out unsupervised...we got it. we figured we will just take her for walks and when we move into our house (we're buying!!) we can set her up a cool habitat outside that inescapable. moohooahahhahahaha!

[BullDog]

Sounds like she's getting way too much food!
3 tablespoons of pellets is too much. You should feed about a head-sized amount every second day. For comparison, my 8.5" female gets about one tablespoon (one and a half if she's lucky and I'm feeling soft) every second day.

Too much lettuce too. Cut it down to one leaf a day (consider a leaf to be about a shell sized amount). And cut down the tomato to once a month or less. It's quite acidic.

There is no need to "ween her off" her old diet, that is only prolonging the health-damaging effects. Start her proper diet NOW!

Since you're letting her out, make sure she has access to areas that have loose soil. Watch to see if she starts digging. If she does, there's a good chance she's gravid, even if she doesn't lay. Females are very picky about where they make their nest. It may take many half-dug holes and several days before she actually lays.
If she doesn't seem interested in digging, then you can breath a sigh of relief (for now)

[chirp]

whoa...ok...so less food.

and yes when she goes outside she does dig...she buries herself completely. do they do that when they want to lay eggs? we thought she was hiding from us so we wouldn't take her back in. we would leave her out for about six hours. sometimes in the am, sometimes at night, since i read that turtles sometimes like to lay their eggs in twilight light (so dusk or dawn).

[BullDog]

They'll dig with their back feet if they're ready to lay eggs (and make a hole behind them). Digging herself into the dirt does sound like she's hiding. She's most likely hiding because she doesn't like being outside (too big and scary for her).
6 hours outside is too long (did you watch her that whole time??). Usually you don't want to keep them out for more than an hour. They can get too hot or dehydrated (especially in the summer).

[chirp]

we wanted to leave her outside b/c we don't know how long it takes them to lay eggs. she was not supervised the whole time...but we built a pen for her, and the pen basically encloses two giant bushes that she was using for cover. fwiw her pen is right outside of our front door. it's all we could do (we live in an apt.)

[chirp]

also...we leave her out there on mild days...last time she was put out it was raining...we figured that would help with the dehydration/water bit.