General Care Discussion :: Shedding turtle

[paigemccawley]

Hi,
I have a 7 year old red eared slider I got him (now thought to be a her) when she was just a hatchling. She is shedding her scutes right now and her shell looks so much better in the places the have come off. I just cleaned her tank and decided to try something I read about recently which is to use a clean toothbrush on her shell to gently scrub away and lose scutes (not pick at them until they come off mind you only the ones that are about to fall off already.) she didn't like it one bit and decided to hiss at me the entire time. I wasn't hurting her, I brushed very gently. She was then placed back into her clean conditioned water to eat a big dinner and happily swim around. Is this an okay thing to do or would you steer clear of it in the future?

[steve]

The scrubbing is mainly to clean, not to assist in shedding. Feel free to do so if the shedding process it taking long and there might be debris under the scutes. It's normal for the turtle to not like being held. No doubt she will pee and even poop if held long enough (and if she were a male, he might expose himself).

Also, it's better to use activated canon than water conditioner.