Two sick tortoises from Turkey

[rmetin]

Hi, I am writing to you from Turkey.. It is very difficult to find somebody who knows something about tortoises... I took my tortoise to vet as well, but unfortunately, there is no result yet.. I found an email address that belongs to xxxxxxxxxxxx. I sent them a detailed mail but there is no answer for two days. Maybe they did not see, or they are busy, but I am afraid of being late for my tortoises' illness I will copy my detailed mail here, and add the pictures as well.. If there is somebody who has the same experience or knows what happened to my tortoises, please help me... I love them, and I am ready to do everything for keeping alive them... I knew that they were very ill when I bought them.. However I thought that everbody can buy the best and the most healthy ones, I only prefered to take the ill ones and make them healthy and happy... Please help me...
The mail and photos are below:
I bought two tortoises from a pet shop although I knew that they were very sick.. Their conditions were very bad, there was no lamp for warming, no food for eating, no water for drinking... They were very cold like an ice piece.. I took them immediately to a vet. I am writing to you other details below:

*The name of the species: maybe Testudo hermanni I do not know exactly

*Nearly three weeks ago I bought them from a pet shop

*I am in Turkey in Ankara ( weather is very cold and snowy in winters, and very hot and dry in summers. )

*The age and size of the animal: One of them is 6.5 cm, one of them is 5.5 cm but I have no information about their ages.

*There is no physical contact but I have 5 parrots too in the same room.

*Full details of the diet : small one rejects eating sera' s raffy vital, it only eats lettuce, carrot and soybean burgeon.The bigger one eats sera's raffy vital, lettuce, soybean burgeon, apple. I gave a lot of green plants too but they only choose these ones.

*Names of any vitamin and mineral supplements: I drip Sanasol( includes a vitamine) only one or two drop on their food. I also give Calcidine( d vitamine and minerals ) in their water by resolving nearly 10 small pieces of it.
Type of accommodation: Firstly, I prepared a wood terrarium( 53*45*45 cm cubes) with 15 watt 45 cm uvb lamp( sera ) and a warming lamp (40 watt). I put organic soil that is with a height of 10 cm. But for two days, their eyes were closed. I was afraid of infection form soil so I took them from there and put to another plastic box with a height- 20 cm and an area -40* 50 cm square today. I put wood shavings( that is special for hamsters) on the base of box.

*The temperatures: Above 25 degree.
*Are the eyes open? Is it alert? - When I bought the bigger one was very ill and the small has only shell problems. Small one's eyes were open, the bigger one's eyes were hoarse. But now the bigger one is better, its eyes are not so closed. The small one's eyes were closed and they look like that they have a small infection.

*Is the animal walking normally? - The bigger one could not walk normally when I bought it, it put its head to the base and walked hardly but now it is much better than the first behaviour. The small one walks normally.

*Is the animal feeding? - Bigger one eats very throaty sera 's raffy vital and other food. But for two days, smaller one eats much less..

************************************************** ************************************************** *****************************
***The biggest problem was with bigger tortoise.. When I bought it, it gave no reaction to me, it could not walk easily and put its head to base while walking, and under its shell, it had dark and similarly green stains. And when I gave it water firstly, I understood that it did not drink water for a long time because it did not stop drinking for nearly 7-10 minutes. İt started to eat, there was no problem with its appetite. Because of its shell, I took it to vet immediately. He injected an antibiotic medicine- PAN TERRAMYCIN( very small amount 0.025 ml) . And injected serum ( small amount again) and a vitamine. At home, I injected its serum every 6 hours( very small amount), antibiotic every two days(0.025 ml), and gave vitamine every week( 1-2 drop). I continued to give serum 4 days. And when I noticed that edema occured in its neck, I stopped to inject from its arm, and started to inject to its back leg carefully. I will send you the photos of its shell. Now, it becomes very active, has appetite, walks normally and there is no edema. Only eyes are sometimes a bit hoarse, especially when it first wakes up.. But the biggest problem is, its shell.. It has still dark stains.. They did not increase but there is no an obvious decreasing It takes a bath twice in a day with warm water.

shell of bigger one- 6 days ago


shell of bigger one --yesterday...


***The smaller one looked better when I bought it. But it became more sleepy three days ago. It started eat less and it has now two problems. One of them is under its shell, there is pink areas and small, thin, wihte circles. The other problem is on its neck, two sides became red- light purple. Its skin starts to peel. And another important point is that the pink- purple areas of its skin is wet, not dry apperance. It has no edema and it takes a bath twice in a day too. I injected it 3 antibiotic medicine (pan terramycin) because of its pink areas on the shell. I thought that they were because of lung infection. It might catch a cold in pet shop and also in their first terrarium, it always tried to bury itself to soil to avoid itself from lamp and warm.. In soil maybe it was cold because of soil's damp I took it from there and now it is also on the wood shavings. Their lamp is always open and they are warm.. The photos were taken yesterday, today the peeling is getting around through the back of neck and front legs, these areas become pink- purple too....

smaller one shell problems


after 6 days


smaller one skin ( around neck) problem










With all respect..

[egyptiandan64]

Hi,
Both your tortoise are Greek tortoises, Testudo graeca ibera
Your larger tortoise sounds like it's doing fine now and the spots on the plastron are just normal color spots.
I have a question about the smaller one though. Did it get a vitamin injections too?
Also are you keeping the lights on all the time?
It would be great if you could post pictures of your set-up.
You need also to change their diet. Pellets are not good for tortoises. You need to be feeding mostly weeds.
Here are some links
http://forums.shelledwarriors.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=159
http://forums.shelledwarriors.co.uk/...pic.php?t=1154

Danny

[rmetin]

Thank you very much for your answer..
Firstly, about the dark spots' danger, the vet said to me that it would die because of their reason He told me that these spots means that the infection branched inside the shell... I put a new photo for showing you what I mean while saying dark spots:



Smaller one got vitamin injection once 2 weeks ago. Vet injected.. But I only injected it antibiotic medicine.. Should I inject serum too? And what do you think about its shell? Is it also infected because of pink- purple spots??

I keep the warming light always on. The uvb light is on during day( for 12 hours).

In Turkey, everybody insists on feeding them with pellets But I will obey your advice. Should I never give pellets or how should I give this food?

Firstly I put organic soil but after their eyes were closed, I took them another place with wood shavings( special for hamsters and rabbits).
This was a wood box, 53*45*45 cm cubes, in this photo, their uv lamp were not here.


but now for nursing, I put them in a smaller box for warming them easily.


This is the recent photos of smaller one..


the same thing started in the back leg. What is this?


In this photo, my curious and jealus parrot Büdü also joined. I do not give permission their contact but my parrot is observing these new guys carefully and trying to understand what or who they are


Eyes are closed.. I am wondering that they have an important illness.. What do you think??

[egyptiandan64]

Your welcome
Your larger tortoise is just fine I'm not seeing any problems associated with septacemia, which is what your vet is talking about.
The smaller tortoise though is suffering from to much Vitamin A, which it got in the vitamin injection. That's why the red tissue and the sloughing skin. For that you need to use a topical antibiotic ointment, Neomycin is the best thing, for the red spots so they don't become infected.
You need to shut all your lights out at night, as long as your house temperatures don't get to cool. If they do you can use a red bulb to supply heat. Having the lights on constantly will stress the tortoises.
Your set-up is just fine and so is the hospital container.
No you shouldn't feed pellets at all to your tortoises. For vitamins and calcium you should be using Nutrobol if you can get it and be sprinkling that on their greens at every feeding.

Danny

[rmetin]

Dear Danny,
Thank you very much You make me so happy))))

I could not sleep, study my lectures since I bought them.. I only want to keep them alive and make happy too....

Can I ask you a few questions again??

I hope, I can find the medicines that you said to me in Turkey.. But

Is Neomycin similar with Pan Terramycin? What is the ingredient of this antibiotic do you know??( whether there is no Neomycin in Turkey ) Should I inject it or dropping to its food? What is the scale of it ( in ml unit )?? Should I inject to front leg or back leg?

Do you know Calcidine?? Is it similar with Nutrobol???

I also obey to close lights, you are very right. They get nervous...

Thank you again..

[egyptiandan64]

Neomycin is for putting on the outside on the tortoise's skin. It's not something you can inject. Neomycin is the antibiotic, it would probably be under a different brand name in Turkey, so I didn't use ours If you can't get that there are a few others, but ask your vet or pharmacist for a topical(which means for the skin) antibiotic.
No I don't know Calcidine, but if you could post exactly what's in it I can tell you if it is the same

Your welcome,
Danny

[rmetin]

Okey, I understand you now exactly : )

Are you sure that the bigger one has no problem with the dark spots on its under shell??? Can I use this antibiotic for it too and apply both skin and shell?

Calcidine:

In 5 gram granule:

calcium magnesium inositoheksaphosphate..........125 mg
calcium glukonat.......................................... ......375 mg
vitamine D2................................................ .......300 u.i.
and sugar, vaniline

Maybe I can not translate exactly the inositoheksaphosphate and glukonat...
But I hope I can find Nutrobol too... Can you send me ingredients of it??

Thank you very much: )

[egyptiandan64]

Calcidine isn't what you want, what you have is for mammals. You want vitamin D3 not D2 and no sugar or vaniline. I'll have to get someone to post the ingredients of Nutrobol as I don't have it in the US.

Danny

Ingredients for nutrabol are:

contents per gram

200mg calcium
150IU
D3
Vitamins :A, E, K, B1, B2, B6, B12, C, folic, nicotinc & pantothenic
Biotin choline niacin and minerals :Na Fe Co I Mn Zn Se Cu

Copied from the nutrabol tub.

Useful website: www.vetark.co.uk

However Sarah sells nutrabol on the Shelled Warriors shop - Sarah may be able to get some to you quickly?

[egyptiandan64]

Here's what I found for Nutrobal
Ingredients Per gram: Vitamins A 500iu, D3 150iu, E 20iu, K 0.05mg, B1 0.5mg, B2 0.6mg, B6 0.3mg, B12 1.2ug, C 2.5mg. Biotin 0.001mg Folic Acid 0.15mg Nicotinic Acid 2.5mg Pantothenic Acid 0.5mg Choline Chloride 6mg Calcium 208mg Phosphorus 4.5mg Ca:P ratio 46:1 Sodium 2mg Iron 3mg Cobalt 0.05mg Iodine 0.05mg Manganese 1.75mg Zinc 3mg Selenium 0.005mg Copper 0.75mg
It's a bird vitamin and mineral supplement, so you might want to look for it in the bird section of your petshops. If you can't find it you can always order it online.

Danny