Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey i have a painted about 5 1/2 inches long and he has a piece missing from his shell just behind his front left leg. The wound is about 1 1/4 inches long and at the end of it, the wound turns into a crack that goes about 1 inche across the shell. the wound doesn't look to serious, and he is acting normal. I was wondering if there is any type of solution i could use to keep it from becoming infected.

That sounds kind of big, is there any oozing, or does it look infected at all?
I'm big on have a vet take care of things like this, if it were mine I'd see the vet because this shell may need some repair work done on it. If any pathogens have gotten into the wound, this turtle may need oral or injectable antibiotic treatment as well.

My sulcata tortoise was found, someone had used her as target practice & shot her with a .22 rifle. Her bullet holes were filled with epoxy then a year later after her shell had begun to heal so much that the epoxy was wearing off, one bullet hole began to crack & the crack began to grow.
If I'd let it go it looked like that eventually a huge chunk of shell would've fallen off leaving her in big trouble.
So it was back to the new herp vet who'd moved here & that crack was repaired with acrylic. The crack is fully healed today although all the bullet holes are not yet fully healed.

One of my box turtles was broken when she was found & the vet that treated her sutured her together with stainless steel sutures. That helped her shell grow back together the way it's supposed to be, it took 2 years but it did grow back together.

So if your painted has a crack there just really may be a need to put that back together for it to fully heal.
Good luck with this & let us know what happens next.
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PHRatz