russian tortoise with eye and diet issues
 

hi i have had my russian tortoise for best part of a year now and over the past few weeks he hasnt opened his eyes and is refusing to eat anything.

it started with what we believed was an eye infection, this is when we took him to the vets and they gave me some eye drops for him. however they did not have any effect.

he has now got both eyes closed and is not eating anything.

i believed it might be due to a coil bulb which was providing his uv and uvb light. as he had read that this can affect young tortoises eyes and he is only a year old.
so i have ordered a new mbv light for his vivarium and made sure the temperature is in between 30 and 40 degrees C throughout the day and have the windows open so he can get as much natural light as possible until his new lighting arrives. but i am unsure why he isnt eating anything. does anyone know what might have caused him not to eat.

his diet did consist of leafy greens and a spring mix. i gave him pieces of cucumber once a week and maybe once a month he would be allowed a fruit such as a blueberry or strawberry.

he gets bathed every other day for at least 15 minuets.

his substrate is a form of cat litter which is appropriate for reptiles and is cleaned out as soon as needed.

Hello welcome :)

The substrate is unsuitable. Horsfields love to burow. Plain ordinary topsoilk is all he needs.

Your temperature is too high. 20 cool end & 30/32 warm end is fine. How big is the viv? It needs to be long enough to provide a temperature gradient (so lamp at one end) A table would be even better as less humidity :)

They won't eat if they can't see the food. I would up his baths to daily for the time being & persevere with the eye drops, which you may need to gently rub in to manipulate past the eyelids. :)

You have to make sure its a vet who knows about tortoises, as just like our doctors they dont all specialize in reptiles.
Eye infections can be anything from incorrect husbandry, to getting substrate in the eye. I would seek out a better vet, as the sooner its sorted the sooner all will be well.

welcome to the forum, such good advice above , only other thing I would add , for more natural air flow setting I would place him in a tortoise table with right husbandry as suggested , and consider what they would eat in the wild. if he has eaten the cat litter or equivalent likely he will be very unwell indeed , think as natural as possible. hope he rallies ok with some changes , CB

I agree with all the above, I would get him in an open top table ASAP, and change his substrate to sterilised top soil, keep this moist, basking temps 30/32c , cool end 20/22c . Plenty of warm baths, and find a specialist tortoise vet.

I know this thread is very old but I had two torts with closed eyes ..it turned out to be vitamin A deficiency..

yes , I know people say its rare but I always recommend vitamin C & A in the way of bathing in carrot juice or hip baby carrot food (recommended on here by someone who had same) and can not believe the difference it can made also. I always wash out with opticom which is a human anti histamine for summer hayfever. Again it always seems to work ok (fingers crossed). The horsey torts are a nightmare for eye infection because they bury like no other and then also scratch with legs to get the mud/dirt/soil out the way which lends itself to eye issues. Keep them on shingle and you don't get so much of it. CB