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Hi everyone,

We have had fatty at the vet to deal with his shell issues, and he went through a couple of days where his eyes were shut, probably due to being chilly in our apartment while dry docked.

Our vets have advised keeping him warm and only out when we can control the temperature. One of them also recommended something called organic red palm fruit oil, which goes by brand name HEALx Sunshine Factor... she said it would be similar in effects to the cod liver oil, boost his immune system, help fight off infection, and help restore his shell.

Was wondering if anyone had ever heard of this and had any experience with it?

http://exoticdvm.com/index.cfm?fuseacti ... up_id=215&

Thanks!

This was a herp vet that recommended this? I've never heard of it, but it sounds interesting from the info in the link and if the (herp) vet has used it on turtles... Just wondering, but if it's similar to cod liver oil, what's the problem with using cod liver oil?

While I appreciate homeopathic medicine, that looks a little pricey.
What were your turtle's symptoms that made you take him to the vet? If you can use cod liver oil instead you'd probably save money, and at least from what I've seen, it's very effective.

We had this whole thread going on his symptoms...
http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewt ... sc&start=0

Basically, he has beginnings of shell rot on his plastron, we started treating at home then took him to vet to get nolvasan and silvadene. We started that treatment and did some lengthy dry docking, at some point in there he got a little sick and lethargic, and his eyes swelled up and stayed shut for most of the day on sunday. We emailed the vet and sent a picture, and she recommended bringing him in to start antibiotics.

We did that yesterday, and had a pretty rough visit (kept getting brushed off, they tried pushing the injection without really seeing him, etc. Coincidentally, on that day, Fatty chose to open his eyes and has pretty much kept them normal since then. So we decided to hold off on antibiotics, and just keep treating the shell and keeping him as warm as possible.

At some point in the conversation, the vet (who is the herp specialist at this animal hospital) recommended the palm oil to boost his immune system... She sees other animals too, but I am hoping she's used this in a turtle in the past and seen success.

It is very pricey, which I would rather avoid! So the cod liver oil, now that his eyes are pretty much open again, would it just be good to dip a pellet in it every now and then? And it's okay if its floating around in the water a bit?

If you're planning to use the cod liver oil to add Vit A to the diet and/or avoid a Vit A deficiency, you could dip a pellet or two occasionally in cod liver oil and feed them to your turtle. A safer way to include Vit A in the diet would be to offer him foods high in beta carotene (red peppers, squash, carrots, pumpkin, yams/sweet potato, for example). If he will eat foods like these and they're included in his diet, he will convert the beta carotene to Vit A as his system needs it (no worries about him getting too much Vit A, which can be toxic if overdone).

I'd be curious to know from the vet what makes the red palm oil preferable to cod liver oil (perhaps there's no issue with toxicity?).