Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is an update of the following post
http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1088535,1088535

I lost my "little yertle" before I had a chance to get her to a vet. I had brought her in for closer observation and she seemed to go down hill rapidly within a few hours and died.

She had defecated in her water, and it looked basically normal,
so that seemed to rule out an impaction or constipation.

So I started doing more googling trying to figure out why she
had been reluctant to use her back legs and the only thing I
could find implicated a protazoan parasite called hexamite parva.

Anyone ever hear of this?
http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/proto.html

The only thing that doesn't fit with this, is that I
never saw anything unusual in her urine although I could
have missed it. It has never been uncommon to find urates
in the water, and she peed on me her last day and it looked
like urine, very clear, no urates.

She did develop some strange skin lesions on her back legs the last few hours, and one got pretty nasty right before she died.

A vet I have worked with over the past few years did a necropsy
on her and so far hasn't found anything conclusive although he was going to go back and look at the skin on the legs more thorougly.

He said he found some red blood cells in her bladder, which could indicate hexamita. He didn't see any hexamita, but those
are hard to see when they are alive. Little Yertle had been
dead in the fridge couple of days before I got her to the vet, and then he wasn't able to look for a couple of days.

The vet also said she wasn't egg bound, something we were
a little worried about although I didn't think she was fully
mature. He said he saw overies but no eggs. He also said
the muscle tone on her back legs were good. He did say her lungs looked a little "pneumonic", but that could have occured
post mortem. I know I never saw any nasal discharge or difficulty breathing.

We started treating the rest of the turtles in the group
with flagyl on Friday, just in case she did have hexamita.

Hexamita is very contagious and although I clean their water several times a day and often just leave the hose trickling into their bowl, there still would have been opportunity
for this to spread.

Anyway, I'm just trying to make sure we aren't overlooking anything. So has anyone ever dealt with hexamite, or had a
turtle with symptoms that involved the back legs? Any strange
skin lesions?

I've been hovering over Dottie(the other turtle in the photo I posted) because she was heavily exposed to Little Yertle, one reason I want to make sure we aren't overlooking something else.

Thanks for any info.

I hope the metronidazole helps.
I can't say much on a personal level about that particular protozoa but I can say this:
My mud turtle once had an unidentified protozoan infection, he was treated with that drug & was fine. He showed symptoms so he got sick from it but it cleared up quickly. His symptoms were lack of appetite and listlessness.
Not too long after we got the tortoise another unidentified protozoa was found in her. She had no symptoms but she was cleared up in a few days too. I haven't really dealt with severe symptoms in a chelonian.
The drug worked wonderfully for both of mine.

We now test the tortoise monthly during the warm months when she's out grazing, we test the rest of them routinely once or twice a year. If they were to show some sort of symptoms we'd test sooner.

If the vet does find the answer through necropsy & testing, please let us know.
I'm sorry for your loss.
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PHRatz

You know I'm still worried about Dottie.

I don't know if you remember, but I lost a female ornate last summer. I had been worried about her yet she really didn't have any symptoms....there was just something different. Her patterns were just a little off. She ate fine, she was just a little quieter and was hanging out in different areas than she normally did. Unfortunatly, I can't remember if I ever observed her to see if she was walking normally.

So, you can imagine how I am fretting over Dottie, probably my absolute favorite. She enthusiastically ate some superworms and "biljack" dog food last night, both coated with vitamins.
She does seem to be walking normally.

I haven't been able to get her to eat any romaine or tomato this week though, although ornates seem to be more finicky about veggies, I think most of mine eat them occasionally.

My problem is, my family's finances are the worst they've ever been. I do have some reasources to deal with vet bills but I still have to be very careful.

What kind of prudent course could I take with Dottie without spending a fortune on every test imaginable, to try and figure out whats wrong? Would you start with a fecal and basic bloodwork? The vet says he has a way he can collect urine directly from her and has suggested doing that to see if he can find any of the parasites. Maybe, also, some sort urinalysis is in order?

How long should it take to see an improvement with the flagyl?
The vet has me giving them 10 doses of it, its been impossible for me to get it to all of them every day, but I'm just writing down when I dose them, so I'll know when they have had 10 doses.
Dottie, I'm making sure she gets it every day. The others are getting it on average every 2-3 days.

I might consider an x-ray to see if she's eggbound. I haven't seen any nesting activity with her and she has laid eggs the last two summers. But, its still somewhat early in the season. But, if there is something wrong, and its the same thing that took little yertle, little yertle didn't have any eggs.

Dottie had been soaking excessively with little yertle and the day Little Yertle died Dottie was in the water bowl all day and I finally pulled her out late that evening and put her in one of her favorite hiding spots for the night. Since then she has periodically moved on her own to dryer spots, but she still overwhelmingly prefers the water bowl, or the mud hole that forms when I leave the water trickling in the water bowl all day, which is what I do when it is really hot. Otherwise I just refill the bowl several times a day.

It has been very hot for this time of year, just like last year.
Last year I attributed Yertle's(the one I lost last year)
strange behavior to the excessive heat. I don't mean that I think the heat cause heat stroke or anything. Their pen is in open shade with some relatively small sunny spots that change with the sun. But it is hot enough to influence their behavior for early June. They normally don't experience this until mid July when they've ready for a dormant period after eating, mating and nesting throughout the spring and early summer.

Anyway, any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks for listening!

Well I took Dottie to see the vet I've been working with, and
I also took Squirtle for comparison.

After watching Dottie walk, it really didn't seem right, her gait seemed off, especially compared to Squirtle.

Dr. Chris watched both of them walk and quickly confirmed that I wasn't crazy, that Dottie wasn't moving her right back leg as much as her left back leg and she wasn't lifting herself off the ground as much as Squirtle was.

So we did X-rays to check for egg binding and bone density.
There were no eggs and her bone density seemed fine.

Dottie had provided the fecal sample I had been watching for in the car, so the vet did a smear and a float. The only thing he saw were these perfectly round eggs which we determined to be from coccidia.

He then stuck a needle into her bladder and extracted some urine and put some directly on a microscope slide and spun the rest in a centrifuge. He saw no sign of hexamita or any other abnormalities, although if she had hexamita it had likely been cleaned up by the medication.

So he sent me home with some Albon to treat the coccidia and he's going to call someone he knows at our vet school to see if
has any ideas what could be affecting her leg function, if not hexamita.

Does any pet insurance company cover reptiles yet? That's the most cost effective way to deal with finances.

As per post mortem's it's always best to work fresh as you know, but there is only so much a vet can do in clinic. Sending the carcass, or at least tissue samples to a pathologist will give you better answers if there is a dreaded next time.

Ian

>>Does any pet insurance company cover reptiles yet? That's the most cost effective way to deal with finances.

That's a good question so I took a look at the oldest insurance co. VPI (Veterinary Pet Insurance) does now insure turtles and tortoises, as well as several other exotic species.
hmmm that's interesting.
-----
PHRatz

I'm glad you were able to see the vet & I hope the albon works out for you. It should help right away.

Off the top of my head the main reason for lameness in reptiles is metabolic bone disease if not that then a spinal injury.
Females could have more problems with calcium deficiencies when they're producing eggs. Other reasons would be more obscure so the vet would need to investigate further.

Frequent injections can cause temporary lameness in turtles but since we don't give them injections in the back legs that would only happen in the front legs.
Gosh I hope you get this problem solved. Good luck & keep us updated.
-----
PHRatz

Yeah, thats why we did the x-ray. In addition to checking for egg binding, he felt that was the best way to check for possible metabolic bone problems. She lives outside, but I started re-evaluating my feeding and starting getting worried
about calcium phosphorus ratios, etc.

I was relieved when he said he thought her bone density was good, but the re-evalution was probably a good thing and I've found some ways to improve a little bit, although I think I've been doing ok.

I had tried giving some of the better greens before and they really didn't go for them. Then last year I started transplanting dandilions into their pen, which they loved and I was able to do that every week or so.

Already, we are having such a drought here, that most of the dandilions have dried up. But I went back to the store and got some collard, turnip and mustard greens and I've been experimenting with different ways to present those.
I shred those leaves more than usual and mix them up with shredded romaine and it has been pretty much dissapearing.

And, I've noticed the juvi's seem to be much more open to the greens than the adults are. I also bought a couple of papaypas to try since I discovered those have a really good calcium/phospohorus ratio. Dottie has not tried the greens, so I'm hoping she'll try the papaya.

The vet told me to keep Dottie inside while treating her.
I'm guessing I'll have to treat the whole group for coccidia
although he said to just treat her right now. I'm wondering if I'm going to have to dig alot of the dirt out of my pen and replace it? I've read the coccidia eggs are almost indestructible, even when the dirt dries out.

Anyway, so far, Dottie seems to be stabilizing, not getting any worse. She was looking pretty bright eyed yesterday.

If I had to guess, I'd say that it was still the hexamita that
lead to the death of the other turtle and to Dottie's leg imparement. The vet did tell me that the urine in "little yertles" bladder was pink tinged, which is a symptom, but I guess we'll never know for sure.

I hope that everything works out ok for all of you.
As for the calcium, try adding a little powder to the greens mix, that might work but it doesn't work here.
I have to always give that on live bugs because if they smell it in their salad mix, they won't eat it. They are finicky enough as it is when it comes to salad mix. I don't want them learning to refuse that so we do powder only on the bugs.
I like that Janie will eat it on nightcrawlers it's so extremely easy to get the powder all over a wet nightcrawler.
With crickets only Shell E & Charity will eat those so I give them powdered crickets in the bathtub, crickets can't get away from them there.
With the lobster roaches.. it's much harder I have to disable them because they can get away no matter where they are.

One way or another I get vitamins & calcium powder into the turtles every week.
We just have to be creative with how we do it.
I so hope all your turtles do well from now on.
Keep the updates coming.
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PHRatz