Reptile & Amphibian Forums

At first i didint think anything of it because both of the turtles that came home with my fiances girls loked alike their backbone part of the shell much higher then the rest .. the littler of the two dies shortly after being brought home from a sudden respritory infection .. the other bigger turtle still is soft.. her scutes seem to be lifting now and she is slightly deformed i would say .. i have been floating cuttlebone in her tank and feeding her ZooMed Aquatic Hatchling Pellets, ocasionally shrimp or blood worms... soaking her weekly in bird vitamins.. and taking her outside dayly 15-30 minutes some times even 45 while i clean out her tub ... she basks .. but when we enter the room she will make a mad dive for it .. so i tend to leave her alone .... i started tonight dusting her food with crushed Cuttlebone .. because im worried she might have MBD? she is very active with a very voracious appitite .. she goes to the bath room well and can move very fast on or off land

This is a close up of where they are lifting

another pic on a different spot where scutes are lifting

front view of her shell .. ( i think it looks rather deformed)

It looks as if your turtle has a bad case of permiding. Usualy do to not enough basking or bad environment. This is bad. I wish i had some links to give u but i don't good luck.

since she has looked like this since i got her i thought it was normal .. but since looking at several other little turtles im like Noo couldnt be .. i have already been treating her as if she has MBD because of her soft shell .. but i havent recieved very good results so far .. but of course i have only had her a month or so .. and trying to get her to eat plently of Calcium of hard because teh water washes it off ..

I agree with your opinion. I think you are seeing two unrelated things at once, though, a calcium or vitamin D3 deficiency, and a shedding of scutes (which is completely normal). Scute layers grow up from under one another and the top layer flakes off after time (in this species and some others, but not all). This should be allowed to progress normally and is a normal thing. The odd shape to the ribs (which form the bone underneath the keratin layer of the shell and give it it's shape) is likely due to either not having enough uvb light or not enough calcium or both. Uvb light is required for the turtle's body to produce vitamin D3, which occurs as a reaction to the light on the skin. This vitamin is used for the metabolization of calcium, which a turtle needs a lot of, especially a hatchling. Make sure you have a good uvb basking light or are giving it 15 minutes a day in sunlight, and provide it with some cuttlebone to chew on for calcium (they cannot overdose on calcium as far as I know) and the situation should correct itself in time.

Do you have any good ideas for getting better calcium in a turt's diet. Mine won't eat the cuttle bone and I am wary of powders because it could wash off in the water.

I had an idea of embedding small pieces of cuttlebone in shrimp or chicken to trick them into eating it. Any better ideas?

Just a tip on the powder.. of course you can't just put it on food and dip it in water.. it'll vanish!

One thing I learned was if you want to feed it to your turtles you'll have to make the powder stick to the food. I don't know what your feeding it but lets say a turtle pellet... I would lightly put "not too sugary" jelly on it (just a thin lair) and then put the powder on and if you can put another layer of jelly on over the powder to keep it on. Should work, I haven't tried it in the last 3 years but when I did it worked fine. If possible feed it by hand

Thanks! That's pretty clever. I feed mine pellets most of the time. That plus shoving small pieces of cuttlebone inside the shrimp (which I haven't tried yet) will hopefully do the trick.

i got a few crickets today .. i gave one to ButterCup to see if she will take it as well as she does flies .. SHE ADORES FLIES * shakes my head* dont know how to get calcuim into those guys sooo .. i got some crickets small ones .. and have them in a container with a peice of carrot for VitA and some calcium covered turtle pellets and a thin layer of cuttlebone crushed over the bottom of the jar ...

im hoping she likes crickets because i can get crickets to injest calcuim and veggies and feed them to her once a day or something

the problem is i have taken her out everyday for atleast 15-45 minutes while i clean out her tank taking everything out and scrubing the rocks , therometer, everything then usuing sculding hot water to make sure its sterile and any germs are killed .. then adding water and waiting till the thermometer had teh water temp balanced .. then i go get her and put her her plants, snails, and fish back in

You could also increase the calcium in your turtle`s diet by giving it the soft bones that are in sardines or salmon (buy the ones packed in water, not oil). My RES loves salmon bones. I take some, clean them well and rinse them to get as much of the saltiness out as possible. Then I crumble some in his feeding pan. I also keep some soaking in water in the fridge to give as a quick snack.