Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My alligator snapper has been displaying his penis for a few months now. Trying to do searches on the net I have found very little info on this. I am thinking of taking him to my local vet but I'm sure he has no experience with this sort of thing as pet turtles around here are fairly unheard of. Any advice anyone has that I can pass along to the vet would be greatly appreciated. The turtle appears completely healthy and has a healthy appetite. One site I found suggested a vet put in a suture to prevent it from happening again but I guess you would first have to get it to back in. Anybody with any knowledge or experience with this I would really like to hear from you. Thank You very much for your time and any help or ideas you may have. Jim

If it has been out for that long, he needs to be seen by a vet. I would find one that has experience with herps. If your local vet doesn't treat reptiles, he should be able to point you in the right direction. Hopefully you have this guy housed by himself, if not, you should separate him. Another turtle may mistake his manhood for food! Best of luck with him. Christy

Thanks Christy. He is housed alone so there's no worry of anything mistaking it for lunch. I haven't actually looked for a vet yet that specializes in herps but I'm pretty sure the nearest one would be a five hour trip in each direction so I'm going to start with a trip to my local vet first. I just thought I might try to find out as much as I could about possible treatments for when I do go to the vet. I did some more searching on the net today and found it may likely be what's called paraphimosis but not a lot is said about treatments etc. Like you say hopefully the vet will know someone educated in this field that he can call. Thanks again Jim

Hey Jim,
Your doing the right thing by searching the web and trying to find out all that you can about the condition and possible treatment. Most people wouldn't put much effort into it! Hopefully your local vet will be able to help you out. I think ALL vet clinics should have at least one doc that specializes in reptiles and hopefully that day will come, but until now, us reptile people have to do the best we can do!

My vet treats some reptiles, but only if the problem isn't too severe. Lat summer, I saw an Eastern box turtle get hit by a car so I brought it home, contacted my vet and set up an appointment for that afternoon. The turtle's plastron was pretty badly damaged, his hinge was completely smashed. Well, my vet took one look at him and said "all I can do for him is euthanize him, sorry! I can't repair a busted shell." Well, I wasn't happy with that answer! Despite what this turtle had went through, it had a strong will to live so I brought him back home. I had heard of people putting shells back together using fiberglass car repair kits, so I bought one and tried my hand at it. Well, it worked! His shell began to mend and I still have this guy. While he will never be able to be re-released into the wild, he seems pretty happy just being a pet and having a second chance.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's much you can do on your own for a prolapse, but hopefully you will find a vet with a better outlook on reptiles than my vet! It will more than likely have to be stitched back into place, poor turtle! Anyway, best of luck with your guy! Maybe he can be returned to normal before too much longer!