Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, I returned home from a two and a half week vacation to find one of our painted turtles (which was wild-caught about 6 months ago) with his neck twisted and stuck to the left , and can now only swim in a sharp downward spiral to the right, or walk in a circle going towards the right. We called a pet store in Detroit, and the employee told us the turtle probably got too hot and now has brain damage, but that he 'might come out of it'. That didn't quite sound right to me, so I found a website (wetwebmedia.com), and the man who runs it told me it sounds like the turtle may have parasitic worms. He also referred me to this site. I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and am unable to locate a vet that has any knowledge of exotics. Has anyone here ever heard of this happening to a turtle before? If so, is there a remedy? If it is worms, are they contagious? We also have 3 other Painted Turtles, 3 Map Turtles, and 2 Yellow bellied Cooters in the same tank. Any information would be appreciated. Thank you.

Brie

JamilaBrie@aim.com

Here'a list of herp vets in MI:

http://www.michherp.org/vetlist.html

Not sure if any of these are in the UP.

For what it is worth, I've found the advice on wetwebmedia to be excellent, at least regarding marine aquarium care. Regarding the possible contagion of parasitic worms, it is pretty well accepted that all wild caught turtles are parasitized to some degree (all five of our box turtles were). Keeping their habitat scrupulously clean goes a long way to minimizing parasite population, but I wouldn't stress out over contagion, unless your others turtles show symptoms.

your turtle may have broken its neck. i remember i had a corn snake that broke its neck, its head was tilted to one side looking kind of up and it was doing backwards dives. it died minutes later