Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It's been about 2 & 1/2 years since our sulcata's bullet holes were worked on by the vet. Who ever the idiot was that shot her did it 3 times so she came to us with 3 entry & 3 exit wounds. Lucky for her the bullets hit her only in her horrendous pyramids & nothing else.
The appearance of her pyramids in 4 years has been awesome, they are still quite noticeable but they look so much better than they used to.

We've had her just 6 weeks short of 4 years now, some of her bullet holes still are not 100 percent healed, the larger ones are not. In one spot acrylic popped off quite some time ago but the entrance wound in that spot was only a scar, it has fully healed.
This week some of the acrylic popped off & a bullet hole is exposed but hey it looks a lot better than it did!

She's got an appointment for Tuesday to get this all done over again. It's the larger wounds that are taking so long to heal. There is one extremely huge hole in her shell, I'll bet that one is going to take several more years to heal.
It's all so pathetic- & I get SO angry when I sit & think about the horrible abuse that was heaped upon her.
BUT I am very glad that we were able to take her in, she's a sweet & wonderful animal!
I'll have to get pictures of her ..some before & after shots.
Wish her good luck at the vet's because she is NOT going to like this one bit! It's for her own good but she doesn't understand that.
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PHRatz

Well my girl's repair job didn't get completed yesterday so she spent the night at the vet's. She'll be home later today. I can't go pick her up until my DH gets off work at 5 because I can't get her out of the car by myself. There are several men who work at the hospital so getting her into the car is no big deal. I need a hydraulic lift at home! LOL

When we adopted her in 2002 she weighed 9lbs.
Yesterday she weighed 60lbs.
Maaaan I can't get over how much she's grown in 4 years.
WOW!
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PHRatz

Do you know how old she is? She may just double that!! You may want to look into a small crane and a horse trailer for trips to the vet. Currently for my tort transporting can still be done in the palm of my hand.

>>Do you know how old she is? She may just double that!! You may want to look into a small crane and a horse trailer for trips to the vet. Currently for my tort transporting can still be done in the palm of my hand.

I wish I knew how old she is. She was about 12 inches long when she was found. Because she was so big & pyramided I thought that maybe she's a little younger than she might appear but I'll never know.
I also thought that because she now lives here where we don't have to feed her because she can graze on her own on Bermuda grass & weeds that her growth would slow down.

When she first got here I read all the sulcata websites which all stated that in their natural habitat they grow slowly, west TX is so similar to her natural habitat that even the Abilene Zoo had a big exhibit comparing the similarities of the west side of the state to the part of Africa sulcatas come from.
I carried her on my hip with one hand in 2002 & thought I'll be able to do this for a few years.
WRONG LOL!!

We actually did think about a pig trailer... someone told me they're smaller than a horse trailer & would work for a giant tortoise. But how would you get her IN IT?
Still need a hydraulic lift to do that lol!

Thankfully in the case of a real emergency our vet does do house calls! I hope we never need that but I am so glad to know that we can go that route if we have to.
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PHRatz

She ended up staying one more day at the hospital. They couldn't get the acrylic to look the way they wanted it to so it took more work than expected.
The fun part was picking her up to go home. I bought some parrot food, paid the tortoise bill, then sat down to wait.
Thankfully the crowded lobby had cleared out a bit before she was brought up.
But there was still one elderly couple sitting with their dog waiting their turn for a room when one of the men who works there brought her up. He was walking pretty fast as he carried her by himself & so I jumped up to get the door open.
The elderly woman said "OH MY GOODNESS!" when she saw my big girl so as I passed them & opened the door I said
"Yup that's my baby!" LOL

I wonder what the elderly people thought? That man was probably peppered with questions when he got back inside as I left lol.
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PHRatz