General Care Discussion :: Ah, retained scutes, when will you go away?

[TheComputerGremlin]

If anyone has been following the saga of Umi, my turtle, I need help, and for newcomers, I'll give you a little background info.

I got Umi at 1.5" and she is now up around 6.5-7". She wouldn't sit still long enough for me to measure. I have had her for almost 3 years, I put her age somewhere in the 3-4 year category. She sprouted up pretty quickly, reached 4" easily by the first year of me having her and her growth has started to slow in the last year. You can tell this by looking at her scutes, including ... her baby scutes. Yep, they are at the top of the scute pyramid on her back. Pyramid, as in, growth rings like a tree has, not pyramid, as in, pyramiding from too much protein. Her scutes are actually fairly smooth, minus the retained scute portion.

I've known she is retaining them, maybe from not enough basking or UVB (though I have seen her up there many times, maybe she's not getting quite as much UVB as needed). I've tried blueberries, I've tried cuttlebone, I've tried warmer water, cooler water, I've replaced the UVB (ReptiGlo 5.0) religiously every 8 months, her water is clean and clear and under control ... But no scutes. We did lose a few of the baby scutes on our last move, but, they were just paper-thin slivers of scute.

Onto the reason for my post, I dropped her. Well, I didn't really drop her, in a moment of distraction, she pushed her foot against my hand and got free. She fell about 18" into a sink on the corner of her butt, sort of upside down. Two scutes popped up, not released from the shell, but easily popped up. I was bathing her at the time, soft toothbrush, getting her ready for her new tank. (She's in, btw, happily swimming around, I'll post pics when I get a chance.)

I quickly inspected for blood, flesh, or anything, and it was clean. I scrubbed the area gently with the toothbrush and decided to brave the irresponsible and ever-so-gently help the popped scutes off. They came off with a little effort, no tearing, I was so careful. Anyways, low-and-behold, two perfect adult scutes sitting right underneath!! I mean perfect, smooth, no pointy edges, a lovely mix of yellow, brown, and green (as opposed to the dingy brown she currently is), no sign of rot or fungus.

I WANT THEM ALL OFF. I need help getting them off! I'm getting an MVB for her new tank this coming week, so when it gets here, she'll have an optimal light source. Any other suggestions? I did try to carefully pry the others off, they are stuck on good and tight (and watertight, so hopefully no chances of fungus/rot while I'm waiting for them to come off). And I'm not going to keep dropping her on the edge of her shell, quite inhumane! So, anything I haven't thought of? I'll keep up with the blueberries and cuttlebone, but other ideas that have helped others?

Thanks!! (Sorry so long!)

[shedreamsinred]

They should come off on their own when they are ready. Since you said they were still tightly on there, they are not ready. It sounds like you are doing everything appropriately to help them along.

[Melvira_Fox]

Sid has bad retained scutes. I think one of her problems is that there is water underneath them so the surface tension of it is holding them on. She never basks long enough to let the water dry from underneath her scutes! I've been dry docking her and it seriously takes THREE hours for me to not see water under them. When I gently push on the scute water seeps from the edges of the scute, and when I let go it sucks back up under there!

I'm equally as frustrated.

When you figure out the magic way to get them off- let me know.

[BullDog]

I had the same problem with Frankie. Had her for 2 years, and not a scute shed.
What do the scutes look like when they're totally dry? With Frankie, the edges were lifting ever so slightly when she was totally dry, but when she was wet they looked like they didn't have an edge at all.
Make sure she's dry for a couple hours at least, then have a look. I bet you'll see some of the edges lifting.

And I know this goes against everything we've been told, but take your nail and ever so gently apply a bit of pressure under the edge. I found that when I did that with Frankie, the scutes just started coming off! Took a couple of sessions, but now about 95% of her old scutes are off

The other thing, if you can see the place where an older layer of scutes is, you could even just try picking at the topmost layer. Not sure if this theory works, but maybe if there's fewer layers, the newest layers will come off on their own.

Don't forget to look at the plastron too. On my first session with Frankie, I didn't think about the plastron. But the second time, I thought I'd have a look, and sure enough, most of those layers just popped right off too.

[steve]

The first shed it probably the toughest for the turtle and keeper

The marginal scutes are the toughest, so I wouldn't recommend trying to remove them yourself. Maybe when they are starting to lift up.

[TheComputerGremlin]

Yeah, the belly scutes don't even look like they are ready to shed, they look clean still with no buildup, so there is a chance that those have been shed without me knowing it necessarily, I know those are the ones that the "baby" ones easily peeled off of.

As for when she's dry, no, doesn't look at all like they want to come off. I definitely tried to find out if I could help them along and they are stuck really tight, not the slightest edge to slide something into. The only way you can even tell that something is up is that at the very edges of the shell, it's slightly translucent just from how the layers have pushed out. Otherwise, if I picked her up in the wild, I'd never know there was something going on.

I'm hoping the MVB coupled with the new tank will get her to finally shed these scutes, since that seems to be the one common ingredient to many turtle's successful sheds. The two that popped up, they were barely coming off themselves. I was gently lifting them up while scrubbing under them with the toothbrush until they lifted, but you could tell she was uncomfortable, maybe hitting a nerve of some type? She did not like the feeling ...

@Melvira_Fox - I would be slightly concerned in your case. For mine, the shell is still entirely watertight, but if water is getting under your scutes, you may end up with some shell rot from moisture being trapped. You might want to try Bulldog's suggestion and see if you can gently lift some off since your case is far more critical at this stage.

[imderanged]

The MVB seemed to be the trick for Pickle. I suspect you will see an improvement once you make the switch