Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am doing my yearly "weigh in" before my turtles
start hibernating in earnest.

Dottie is the female ornate that I discovered had a
coccidia infection this summer after I lost another
ornate.

A year ago she weighed 395 grams, fall 2004 she weighed
400 grams. She now weighs 355 grams which is about what
she weighed when I took her to the vet this summer.

My question is, what would be considered a significant
weight loss on a turtle, that might be cause for concern
or would lead you to consider not hibernating a turtle?

That's about 12% of her body weight. I would consider it significant. I read somewhere that 10% and over were considered significant. I would double check with the vet too.

That seems like a pretty significant drop. I've read the 10% figure too. Was that summertime 355g while she was sick? If it was, I think I'd consider skipping hibernation.

On a slightly dofferent but still related note, this might be of interest to you:

I was just going over my notes. I weigh my adults and subadults every month from April-September, but last year I decided to weigh them in October, too, since they were all up and around still and easy to round up for one last weigh-in.

I found that, between September and October, most of them had lost quite a bit of weight (between 5%-10%; don't have a calculator handy), but then when I weighed them the following April, further weight loss was negligible (2g here, 4g there,). In fact, a few even GAINED a few grams between October and April.

I wasn't able to weigh the group this October, but it did get me wondering if this is how the process works, with much of the weight loss actually occurring prior to the serious-underground-for-months hibernation.

Thanks for all replies so far!

Well, she's not going out for awhile.
I probably didn't mention that I had brought her in
about a week or so ago when I found some strange
skin lesions in the area in front of her rear legs.

We were about to have a cold front come in, so I thought
I'd bring her in and clean those lesions and watch her
for awhile.

Today, we were having beautiful weather so I thought I'd
check her skin and maybe put her out for awhile, the area
in front of her rear legs was improved but not completely
clear. Then I looked at her rear end and to the left of her
tail up where the skin meets the carapace, I saw what looked
like an infected area and (ugh!)maggots.

I call the vet and then took her to see him. Initially
I was just going to clean it myself but I realized I wasn't
sure what I was looking at, what kind of tissue damage, etc.

The vet removed some of the maggots and sent me back with
a fresh supply or chlorahexaderm and a syringe and told
me to flush it out. He is not a reptile vet but owns the
current reptile medicine book. He has a call in to a reptile
vet he knows well to get his opinion and see if we need to
do anything else.

Anyway, I can't see letting her hibernate until she heals
up and maybe gains some wait. We have mild enough winters
that I could still put her out later in the winter during a
warmer week and let her hibernate for a shorter time.

Anyway, the vet didn't seem too concerned about the lesions
in front of her front legs. It looks as though some of what I had initially seen has healed as I see an area that looks like new skin around the scabby(?) areas.

I may take some photos later and post them.

Thanks for any additional advise or info!

Sounds like she's going to need some TLC for a while. I hope she makes a full and speedy recovery!