Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It's been a very cold winter here, colder than normal. I noticed last Friday that Shell E refused her food, then she refused every day after that.
I looked her over yesterday & she was snuffling.
Off to the vet we went, she's on Baytril for the rest of the week. After a week we'll see how she does & if she needs any more treatment. The good news is when I checked her this morning after having a dose of meds late yesterday & then spending the night with the ceramic heat emitter pointed in her direction, she looked a whole lot better already. We'll see if she'll eat at feeding time or not.

I feel so guilty because I'm not used to this much cold any more than she is but I must've allowed her to get chilled at some point so now she doesn't feel well & I feel just terrible about it.
It's going to be 70 & sunny later today I think I'll take them all outside for a bask in the real sunlight.
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PHRatz

Oh I am sorry to hear Shell E isn't feeling so well....
try not to beat yourself up, you did right by her.
You took her to vet, got her treatment and are doing
your best to make her feel better. Keep us posted on
her progress.~Nikki
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Man is the only animal that blushes ~ or NEEDS to!

We Survive together ~ or not at all.

Can't help but beat myself up, I should've been more careful when she went walking around the house while it was too cold.
I just now held her up to my ear I hear much more normal breathing already.. thankfully!
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PHRatz

Thats good you were able to recognize a R.I. before it got worse. I have a few turtles that I've had for years. Over the winters a few have shown signs of colds I normally dry dock them and place basking lights overtop of them. I leave them like this for most of the day until things get better. I don't have a vet who treats turtles close by and this method has always worked for me. When you think about it what do turtles do in the wild when they get colds? I always wondered this and last spring I came across this painted turtle. He had a very bad respitory infection one of the worst I have seen. He was sitting on pine needles adjacent to a pond. I left him there assuming he would be eaten at night by a coyote or raccoon, I wanted to help him but he looked to far gone. I went back to the spot a couple times a week for three weeks. Everytime I went he was there on the bank in direct sunlight huddled in his shell. He would follow the sun around the bank of the pond from sunrise to sunset, never trying to get away from me. By the third week he was almost fully healed up, and next time I went down I managed to find him and he was 100% better. Here is a pic of him the first time I found him, he had mucos all over his face and was gasping for air. Amazing how resilent turtles are.