General Care Discussion :: Symptoms?

[GThiele93]

-Difficulty submerging(as if she is fighting to get to the bottom,have yet to see her rest on the bottom.)

-loss of appetite (havent see her eat either)

-Basking all day (is this being "lathargic")

[emma]

Is your turtle swimming is any funny ways? Can you get close up pictures of the eyes and shell?

[grey goose]

None of this sounds good. "Bobbing" or the inability to submerge could be a problem in the GI tract. Loss of appitite and lethargy (excessive basking) also spells trouble.
If I were you, I'd take her to a good Herp Vet pronto.

[GThiele93]

As for weird swimming,its just frantic but she can get halfway dow to the tank but then she stops swimming and floats up toward the surface.

ALSO: what are those orange calsus on the bottom of her shell.

[SpotsMama]

Your turtle looks very good to me. I don't see a problem with the bottom of his shell (plastron). Maybe there's something that's not showing up on my computer screen that someone else can see, but I don't see a problem.

On the behavior though, it doesn't sound good. How long have you had her? Has she acted this way since you"ve had her or is this something new?

When turtles are brand new they are usually scared and too nervous to eat and bask. They are typically skittish though, not lethargic or sleepy and wanting to bask all the time. On the difficulty submerging, it could be, as grey goose mentioned, a symptom of an intestinal problem or it could be fluid in the lungs from a respiratory infection.

[GThiele93]

Well I took rocks out of the tank and let the plants ust float around and my female turtle now renamed(polly, from the Nirvana song.) Started to swim she seemed to easily submerged but she sort of akwardly swam at a slight tilt and not using one hand as much as te other. And i put her in a seperate feeding tank from a hour just like this. Also noticing that she likes to sleep at the edge of the ramp half in the water half on the basking platform.












As you can see i covered her little feeding tank with a napkin for privacy and put her in the most quite place in the house, The water was at her eye level and was a right temp. There was an abundance of food including green leaf lettuce and about 10 small pellets. i came back about an hour later. there was no food eaten and the entire time she just tried to escape from the tuppa ware or just sat there)
( dont worry I checked on her to see she didnt flip over.)

I guess ill try again tonight.

[shannon_nicole]

I wouldn't be expecting her to eat the lettuce yet. A lot of times the baby turtles just won't eat it and you have to wait until they're older. It's fine to offer it though, really, but I think when you're trying to feed her in the small dish while she's sick, you might just give her the pellets so you don't confuse her or stress her out with too much food?

Also what I do with the lettuce is I just take a piece of it, not torn up or anything it's like a leaf about as big as the turtles themselves, and let it float around in the tank. Then whenever they feel like eating it they will. Then I have to take out what's left and replace it like once daily. Lately there hasn't been much left to take out though.


I guess if she gets hungry enough she will eat eventually. Mine did not eat for 3 weeks and he is now fine so try not to worry too much.
You could try soaking the pellets in tuna juice or something to make them smell stronger for her.

[GThiele93]

I wouldn't be expecting her to eat the lettuce yet. A lot of times the baby turtles just won't eat it and you have to wait until they're older. It's fine to offer it though, really, but I think when you're trying to feed her in the small dish while she's sick, you might just give her the pellets so you don't confuse her or stress her out with too much food?

Also what I do with the lettuce is I just take a piece of it, not torn up or anything it's like a leaf about as big as the turtles themselves, and let it float around in the tank. Then whenever they feel like eating it they will. Then I have to take out what's left and replace it like once daily. Lately there hasn't been much left to take out though.


I guess if she gets hungry enough she will eat eventually. Mine did not eat for 3 weeks and he is now fine so try not to worry too much.
You could try soaking the pellets in tuna juice or something to make them smell stronger for her.

Great idea ill be sure to start that tonight

[emma]

Your avatar is HUGE!

[GThiele93]

Your avatar is HUGE!

It is?
it comes up smaller than your on the little profile

[emma]

Yeah i dont know why. It is taking up half the page on here. This happened to me before too.

[GThiele93]

Yeah i dont know why. It is taking up half the page on here. This happened to me before too.

Should I change it? Maybe its your explorer.

[SpotsMama]

I don't see where you said how long you've had her. I'm going to assume she's brand new to you and this is the only behavior you've ever seen.

For little, brand new turtles, the normal reaction to being in a strange habitat is nervousness, wanting to run and hide when they see you, very shy about letting you see them bask, not interested in food for the first week. However, if the temperatures are too cool, any turtle, old or new, will slow down (become lethargic), not move much, and lose interest in food.

But if your temperatures are all normal (water 78 or 80 degrees fahrenheit, basking temp at about 90 degrees) then the other explanation for your turtle wanting to bask all the time, swimming lopsided, difficulty submerging and not eating, is that he's ill. Swimming lopsided is a key indicator for a respiratory infection. It means one of the lungs has filled with fluid.

I can't see your turtle's photos any more. It's odd - they were visible this morning but now all I can see is red x's.

I recommend you get your turtle to a herp vet as soon as you can. If it turns out to be nothing, then great, but it's better safe than sorry. Your turtle is exhibiting some symptoms of illness that needs vet attention. If he's sick then his chances will be greatly improved if he gets good treatment right away.

Here's a caution: If the vet offers to give a vitamin A shot, first make sure the vet is positive your turtle really needs vitamin A and then discuss other alternatives to shots with the vet like eye drops with vitamin A, cod liver oil or food supplements. Several turtles have recently had very bad reactions to vitamin A shots and I think it's best that if vitamin A is needed (and often it's not) the safer methods be used instead.

Good luck. Keep us posted on how he's doing.

[GThiele93]

I don't see where you said how long you've had her. I'm going to assume she's brand new to you and this is the only behavior you've ever seen.

For little, brand new turtles, the normal reaction to being in a strange habitat is nervousness, wanting to run and hide when they see you, very shy about letting you see them bask, not interested in food for the first week. However, if the temperatures are too cool, any turtle, old or new, will slow down (become lethargic), not move much, and lose interest in food.

But if your temperatures are all normal (water 78 or 80 degrees fahrenheit, basking temp at about 90 degrees) then the other explanation for your turtle wanting to bask all the time, swimming lopsided, difficulty submerging and not eating, is that he's ill. Swimming lopsided is a key indicator for a respiratory infection. It means one of the lungs has filled with fluid.

I can't see your turtle's photos any more. It's odd - they were visible this morning but now all I can see is red x's.

I recommend you get your turtle to a herp vet as soon as you can. If it turns out to be nothing, then great, but it's better safe than sorry. Your turtle is exhibiting some symptoms of illness that needs vet attention. If he's sick then his chances will be greatly improved if he gets good treatment right away.

Here's a caution: If the vet offers to give a vitamin A shot, first make sure the vet is positive your turtle really needs vitamin A and then discuss other alternatives to shots with the vet like eye drops with vitamin A, cod liver oil or food supplements. Several turtles have recently had very bad reactions to vitamin A shots and I think it's best that if vitamin A is needed (and often it's not) the safer methods be used instead.

Good luck. Keep us posted on how he's doing.

I've had them for about two and a half weeks. My temperatures are a little uneven now. I have the basking area of 82 and water temp of 75. Also my pictures are unavalible because I was organizing them and broke the dircet link. The swimming isn't very lop sided almost a minor tilt. She nibbled on some amazon blade roots today and pellets. Each time she chewed them about twice and spit them out is this normal.

[SpotsMama]

A turtle will chew on something and spit it out if he/she doesn't like it. I would hope she'd actually be eating since she hasn't had anything for awhile. She needs the calories!

Here are some tips on enticing a turtle to eat. I still think a trip to the vet is in order. When you put all the symptoms together it could be she's come down with something.

http://www.redearslider.com/entice_eating.html