Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have a baby painted, eastern i believe that i found near a pond a few months back. he was the size of a quarter then, now he is nearly twice the size. i noticed a few days ago when i cleaned his tank and his shell, that there were some dark spots on his underside that were not there before, and then i looked again this morning when i got home from work that nearly all of his underside is darker, can this be some kind of infection? he is very active, eats like a pig.. i feed him about 7 reptobaby pellets over a day, 5 in the mornign and 2 at night and then 2 small meal worms cut in half for a treat. i have a uvb bulb and a basking bulb and rock for him to lay on. he seems to spend at least a few hours a day basking. ill post some pics later tonite when i get home.

can someone please tell me if this is normal growth, or is it something i should be concerned about?


thanks,
nick

That looks normal to me.

thanks for your reply, i took him out of the water to dry off for a while. and when he dried off you can really see the redness in his shell and some scrapes probly from his old basking stone i had. it was a little rough, so i got a new one from a lake thats smoother. i think it looks infected. but i dont know much about turtles, just what i read on sites like this. does anyone else have an opinion??

I was mainly referring to the dark coloration beginning on the plastron. It is normal for painted turtles to develop this. If you're concerned about redness and swelling (hard to see in the pic), you should definitely take the turtle to a vet. Good luck with this!