Usually, if it is humidity, I think it will clear

up pretty easily with an improvement in environment.



I mainly use the drops to help get the eyes open.

Once they are open and clear, I stop using them.



I haven't seen it in adults since the first year or two

that I got into this hobby/interest. There is a learning curve on feeding. I'd put some collard greens (full leaves) out for them and they wouldn't touch it. I learned to chop it up and mix it with some romain and I had better luck.



I started feeding tomatoes frequently and they enjoyed them.



I also transplanted dandilions into their pen and they really loved them. Wasn't able to to it as much this summer because of the drought.



Now I only see it in some babies and I see it in ornates

more than three toeds, probably because ornates (in my experience anyway) are more finicky about fruits and veggies.



All my babies get vitamin dusted bugs, and gut loaded bugs, since some don't go for the veggies as well as others.



I have 7 ornate babies from Dottie that hatched in 2005.

Last spring I noticed that the two smallest ones seemed to

have alot of substrate clinging to them and when I cleaned

it off, I discovered, to my horror that some of the skin on

their faces had eroded away. One had his eyes stuck shut

as well. I didn't see any mites or any kind of external

parasite that could be doing this and the other five turtles

were fine.



So, I pulled the two out, kept them in a plastic shoebox with a water dish. Cleaned their faces with nolvasan, made sure they ate some vitamin coated bugs, and gave them some forcefeed mixture made up of babyfood chicken and vitamins also.



Their faces cleared up and eventually I put them in with the others.



A couple of weeks ago I notice almost the same thing again.

Not quite as bad. One had a small amount of skin erosion on his face the other one had closed eyes and it almost looks like

there is some sort of tissue growth over part of the eyes.

Oddly enough he seems to have some vision still.



I started researching vitamin A deficiency and saw something about keratinization on eyes as a symptom.



Thing is, is these two get as much vitamin A as the others in their group. None of them are good about eating greens, but they all get herptivite on their bugs.



So, my hypothesis, at this point is that maybe because of their small size, they haven't built up enough reserve or something.



I've got them both back in the shoebox and instead of just giving them babyfood chicken, I mixing the chicken 1:1 with babyfood carrots, since beta carotine is supposed to be a safe way to administer vitamin A. Hopefully they will build up the reserves they need. I'll probably give some of this to their clutchmates and the other babies that aren't eating greens very well.



If I can, I'll try to get a photo of the one with the weird

eyes, but he is so tiny, I'll need to get my hubby's macro lens.

Hopefully I can get some before and after shots to document what vitamin A deficiency can look like.

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