Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have had snapping turtles for the last 5 or so years ive got a question hopefully someone can answer for me. It seems that around 3 or 4 inches they have this weird clearish/white string like poop that is just long and stringy and takes a while to pass. My new Hypo snapper is doing it right now and I was wondering is anyone could tell me what it may be? I was thinking it may have something to do with them getting to a certain age and like a puberty thing since ive noticed it and now that im thinking it happened to I believe all of them around 3 to 4 inche shell length. If anyone could please tell me what this or or give me any sort of help please let me know. Im a little more concerned now because its with an expensive turtle(aka the hypo) and want to make sure everything is alright.

Mitch

hey, i dont claim to be any kind of expert but, that being said i have three alligator snapping turtles and all three of them got these "white stringy things" that you are describing and when they got them, i thought ahh crap my turtles have worms. so i treated them for worms and they cleared up in about a week. a few weeks later my buddys snapper also started excreating the same white string like feces so i treated his turtle with the same effect. both of us, him and i were at the time feeding our snappers with feeder goldfish. now i know what you will all be thinking right now... (what a dumbass! doesnt he know that goldfish are bad for snappers?!) and rightfully so, that was over a year ago and i had just gotten into the alligator snappers so i was semi oblivious to the do's and dont's of keeping them. upon further research i discovered that it was a commonly accepted fact that feeding feeder goldfish to your snappers is a bad idea due to the fact that the goldfish are treated with copper sulfate to make them more "gold" at the stores and the copper will build up to toxic levels in your snapper causing sometimes sudden and seemingly unexplainable death. so i found that out and stopped feeding ALL of my turtles gold fish. since i stopped feeding goldfish i have had no more problems with these "worms" weather or not thats what they were i guess i will never know for shure but, i do know that worms can and do often live in the stomaches of goldfish so i just dont deal with them any more. i hope that this helps you in some way. and good luck with you new hypo, you should post some pictures up here soon.

Thank you very much, I though it might have been some sort or worm but wasnt sure. I have had goldfish in the tank with him but he has not eaten any since the goldfish were about the same size or larger then he is. Where would I get the de-worming meds and how exactly do you use them?(shot, something to put into the water?)

Thanks again,
Mitch

what i purchased was a small bag of safe-gaurd (fenbendazole) treated alfalfa pellets. i picked them up at my local " grange co-op". this is just a tack and feed store for live stock. most any store such as this should carry something similar to what i got, it is a treatment that is multi-species oriented meaning it is used on hogs and beef and dairy cattle. the safe-gaurd is only 0.5% (2.27 g/lb). the package says it is for the removal and control of: lungworms (dictyocaulus viviparus). stomach worms" barberpole worms (haemonchus contortus), brown stomach worms (ostertagia ostertagi) small stomach worms (trichostrongylus axei). intestinal worms: hookworms (bunostomum phlebotomum), threadnecked intestinal worms (nematodirus helvetianus), small intestinal worms (cooperia punctata &c. oncophora). bankrupt worms: (trichostrongylus colubriformis). and, nodular worms: (oesophagostomum radiatum). so i thought that should about cover any kind of nematode's or trematode's that my turtles might have picked up, seeing as how this stuff was so potent as to work on such a broad spectrum of worms. what i did was to take a pellet that was about 3/8ths of an inch long and i mashed it up with some water to make a paste that i could such up in a plastic tipped syringe then i took my snapper's out of their tank one at a time and i put the equivilant of a full 3/8th's inch pellet down their throat's. my turtles were all three about two and a half inches TSL from the front of their shell's to the back tip of the shell. If you are uncomortable or unshure of how to figure out the dosage then you should just contact your local vet for assistance, though i am assuming that you probably either cant take yours to the vet because of legal reasons or you cant afford it or you wouldnt be asking for assistance here. again, i hope this has helped you. keep us posted.

Mine had the same thing, have not seen it for awhile. I have never fed him goldfish just minnows from the bait store mainly.Got him last sept(about the size of a silver dollar, now about 6" of shell) He's sure seems healthy(is a hearty eater!) so I'm not worried untill I hear different.