Reptile & Amphibian Forums

One of my one year old eastern box baby is not interested in its food anymore.

It has been like that for a week, and I have tried ReptoMin, Nutrafin, mealworm, earthworm, tomato, green, mushroom..etc..

It still carries on its everyday life, it comes out its hiding place to bask, and I soak it everyday too.

The other fishy thing beside not eating is that it excrete dark green egestion, and becasue it's not eating, its egestion is getting less and less everyday, till now, it is almost nothing but alittle of greenlish gelly substance.

It's movement is getting sluggish and appear to be depressed (closing it's eyes more often).

Is it getting ready to its hibernation? (I am keeping it indoor during the night where the temp. is around 70 degree)

Or is it somthing else?

Green feces, gel-like sounds odd. Do you have other turtles & with them you are not seeing this? Does this one live outside?
Frankly if it were mine I'd see a vet. Have you ever tested it for parasites?
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PHRatz

>>
>>The other fishy thing beside not eating is that it excrete dark green egestion, and becasue it's not eating, its egestion is getting less and less everyday, till now, it is almost nothing but alittle of greenlish gelly substance.
>>

The green jelly is bile. The intestinal track is empty - there is nothing left in the turtle and it's basically almost starved to death at this point. If it doesn't get immediate medical attention it will be dead in a few days. Even with medical attention chances are it won't make it - when they get like this it is touch and go. What caused the turtle to go off feed bad enough to get it to this point who knows...possible parasites or stress or something else.
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PHWyvern

If it has only been one week since it last ate it is not yet starving, but you should be very conscerned. Turtles can go 2 weeks or more without food. You need to get the turtle to a vet as soon as possible. Try cantaloupe and wax worms also, but take it to the vet.

>>If it has only been one week since it last ate it is not yet starving, but you should be very conscerned. Turtles can go 2 weeks or more without food. You need to get the turtle to a vet as soon as possible. Try cantaloupe and wax worms also, but take it to the vet.

Hatchlings and Yearlings are not the same as much older box turtles or adults - they don't have the reserves to go very long without eating. A week without food is usually way too much for a yearling to handle. If it was a wild turtle going through the metabolic processes needed to prepare for hibernation (seasonal shift, decreasing temps, etc.) then it would have been adjusted for this. But we are not talking about a wild turtle in natural conditions. When a turtle has nothing left in it's intestinal track like this the last thing you want to do is shove solid food down its mouth - you might think you are doing a helpful thing for it, but in fact it's far to easy to crash the turtle's system and kill it. This is a big sticking point with rehabbers of wild animals when people find a sick or injured or a baby animal...the best thing that people can do for the animal is to not try to feed it..causes more harm than helps and by the time people do get the animal(s) to someone that knows what to do, the damage is already done and usually not able to be fixed. This box turtle needs to see a vet as of a few days ago. It needs to be tube fed by a veterinarian a diet that will help bring it back up to speed. usually a nutritional liquid to start, then gradually thickening until the turtle can once again handle solid/real foods.
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PHWyvern