Posted by:
casichelydia
at Thu Sep 1 23:20:14 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by casichelydia ]
The sulcatta pictured suffered an impact-inflicted fracture wound. Certain species of terrestrial turtle seem particularly capable of recovering from such maladies (in this case I draw from your description that the reconstruction certainly helped) and this comes of little suprise.
However, you mentioned that Benny was three years old upon injury. That is a very young turtle for a sulcatta. You mention danger in repairing/reconstructing shell problems in very young turtles because of the risk in malformation as growth progresses. Though this is true, there is an upswing to this matter. Since the shell grows so quickly in young turtles (by comparison to mature animals), fractures and other such maladies can heal more rapidly (albeit sometimes more awkwardly). Benny's shell is certainly a bit deformed, and more importantly, incomplete. Fortunately, this doesn't matter when it comes to a captive animal with little worries about marauding heyenas.
As the female Malaclemys pictured in the thread that started this discussion appears quite mature, the healing process might not occur any more rapidly in a manipulated state than it would were the turtle simply living normally (insomuch as a captive turtle can).
The last consideration could be that the injury to the carapace in the Malaclemys was not fresh. You were lucky to get to the sulcatta immediately. This can make a big difference when it comes to salvaging tissue (that will in turn regenerate scute keratin) on the carapace. It should not sound morbid so much as curious for me to ask, were any pre-treatment photos taken of Benny, so as to showcase the progress?
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- Erico ~ heres that picture - Tektum, Thu Sep 1 22:21:31 2005
 difference between Benny and the Malaclemys in the thread below - casichelydia, Thu Sep 1 23:20:14 2005
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