Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I dug Hank up for a bath today, and this is what his mouth looked like. Is this normal and i'm freaking out? He's been underground for the past 2 days. Please help, and thank.

Thanks.

I'm not vet or anything but I don't see anything wrong... am I missing something?

I was thinking more along the lines of beak damage/mouth rot.

Hi,
Keep in mind I've never personally seen mouth rot in a turtle (I know the can get it), but have seen it in plenty of snakes and lizards. Mouth Rot looks like bright white clumps inside the animals mouth.. nearly identical to cottage cheese.
My two cents.
--jeff

tortoises beaks are constantly growing (they get worn down from eating etc.), so I wouldn't worry that kind of damage to the beak unless it spreads. Otherwise, it should disappear in a bit while he wears it down as new beak is being grown to replace it.

I've actually had to trim the beak of one of one of my tortoises, because it was overgrown when I bought her and she wasn't wearing it down quickly enough. The main thing you have to be careful of when dealing with beaks is not to damage the any live tissue. The part of the beak that gets worn down is dead tissue and the part that's connected to the tortoise's face is the is live tissue, and whenever you trim a tortoise's beak you need to be careful to only take a tiny bit at a time, to avoid cracking the beak and hurting the good tissue.

But I don't really see anything wrong with it. If it does spread, just take the tort to a qualified herp vet. I don't think you'll have a problem though.

i was trying to see what you're talking about, and i think i see a tiny line near the front of his/her beak, a bit to his/her right? is it a little crack?

my redfoot had one, and what the vet did was to wait until it had grown out a bit, and then buzzed it down with a dremmel tool as a preventative to keep it from spreading downward. it turned out just fine, and never got inflamed or anything because "live" tissue wasn't involved, if my understanding of it is correct.