Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Guys;

I have an adult male Spottie that lives with a female spotted & a female painted. The past week the males eyes are sticking shut & swollen almost like that of a newly caught Ornate Box Turtle. Kinda swollen with a opaqueness under the eye lids, he constantly stays out of his water under the basking light. None of his cagemates are showing any signs of this, they eat a pretty balanced diet of mealworms, fish, nightcrawers & reptomin turtle pellets with vitamin supplements added. They live in about 40 gallons of water in a plastic pool filtered by a Rena Filstar 3 canister filter so I don't think water cleanliness is coming into play here.

So far I've been treating his eyes with polysporin eyedrops & soaking him twice daily in saline solution. Only problem is I live in Newfoundland, Canada where there are NO herp Vets, so if I take him to the Vet I pretty much have to tell them what to do same as I did a couple yeras ago for an egg-bound Indigo snake. I was wondering about a Vitamin B shot for him. If so what would be the dosage for a 4 & 1/2 inch Spotted Turtle, I guess it would depend on his weight. Is there anything else I can do for the poor little guy, he was so healthy up to about a week ago & I'm afraid the others will get sick.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Dean

The swollen eyes are often a secondary symptom of a respiratory infection, rather than a local eye infection. There is a duct area just behind the eyes that swells with infection and causes the eyes to protrude and close. It can be caused by vitamin A deficiency, but this is uncommon in an adult on a reasonably good supplemented diet. Get to a good herp vet. Sometimes they advertise reptile knowledge in the yellow pages. There are listings on his site and other web sites- use your browser. Better yet, ask someone at your local or regional herp society, also listed on this site). The probable drug therapy will be amikacin at 10mg/kg of total body weight given by injection every other day for six doses, or Baytril (enrofloxacin)at 10mg/kg for about 5 days or so. Do NOT let a herp-ignorant vet talk you into using any of the penecillins or cefazolin-type drugs. They are useless in most situations. The usual injections site is a shallow injection with a 25-gauge needle and a 1-cc tuberculin syringe (so you can calculate small doses better) in the loose skin area between the front leg and the bridge of the shell. The vet will probably give you a loaded syringe with dosage volume info and have you do the antibiotic course yourself.
You can confirm respiratory infection by causing the turtle to withdraw its head quickly (push its nose)while holding it near your ear. If you hear a wet, bubbling or crackling sound, respiratory disease is probable. The normal sound is a smooth clear hiss.
P.S. If it is diagnosed as vit. A defficiency, this can be ameliorated by a very carefully calculated vitamin injection, although some experts believe this route causes an overly luxuriant overall skin growth with exfoliation and prefer administering an oral supplement through a feeding tube, a very difficult procedure wth some risk of passing it into the airway if improperly threaded down the throat. Good luck in finding a vet.

Took him to my own Vet yesterday & told her what I was dealing with, explained the sympthoms & what it appeared to be, X-rays showed some buildup in 1 lung. My Vet does NOT have any experience with Herps but between the information you gave & what her book said AND she called a colleauge at the Veterainary college who deals with some Herps. Everything the 'expert' suggested was basically what you had already pointed out. She did say her colleauge said it make a couple of months for this to clear up. So the lil guy has got a shot of Batril plus I have to give him 6 more. I'm currently keeping him at about 83 to 85 degrees in a separate tank. Does this all sound right, am going to try NOT to inject him every day, will rotate hind legs then inject a dosage into an earthworm to see if he'll take it in that form, will be easier than stabbing the poor little guy. Is there anything else I should be doing?? Really appreciate this, hope he gets better he seems a little more alert this morning even.

Thanks again

Dean

You CANNOT give injectible forms of a medication by an oral route. Also, the oral route is inadequate for use in turtle repiratory poblem. Also, with Baytril, you must inject every day in the medication course to maintain proper levels of anitibiotic in the system - otherwise the bacteria just recover and may develop resistance to the drug. Also, because of the turtle renal system. most people urge injecting in the front of the animal, not the rear part. You may alternate sides each day to reduce trauma, but injection is not particularly stressful to a turtle if done propery with a shallow injection in the area I mentioned. Trust me on this - not only am I a turtle fancier for 61 years(I have treated many, many turtles for RI and, if not too far gone, nearly all have shown significant improvemnt in a few days) I am also a former biomedical research scientist who spent much time over many years studying and prescribing proper antibiotics for prevention and treatment of infections in animals with artificial heart implantations and other bioprotheses. I am also a PhD in Zoology. I have discussed treatment strategies with top herp vets at natinal meetings, such as Frederick Fry who wote the definitive massive work on herp medicine. Sorry to bore you with credentials, which I rarely do on this forum, but I just wanted to let you know that I know what I'm talking about. Good luck with treatment.

Duely noted SIR!!!!

I have been going with the injections every day & looked up somewhere else on the internet a day after I put up that last post that discourages medicated food to treat an RI. So he has not gotten a drugged worm, his worms are eau naturel

He is looking much better already, his eyes are back to normal & he's no longer making weird noises, pick up now you get the same old hiss he always gave. He's also running all over the place when I take him out of his cage. Do the temps I'm keeping him at sound about right?? How long before he can go back with his 2 cagemates??

Thanx again, don't worry about quoting credentials I'm greatful to have stumbled on somebody in here with your knowledge. Hope we get to meet in person some day, do you ever attend Daytona or the Tampa Reptile show??? I'm usually working at Gulf Coast Reptiles booth.

Will keep you posted on the lil boy but I think the worst is now behind him.

Dean

Temperature sounds good - increases the function of immune system in poikilotherms. Very, very sorry to have included all those credentials - rereading my reply makes me sound like a judgemental old f_rt, which I am not. Just glad the therapy worked for you. Spotties have been a favorite since age 10.

an INFORMED old F@rt....... really appreciate your help on the matter..... he's looking a LOT better this past couple days scampers up to me for food again just like he did before he caught this damn thing. I'm shocked his cagemates (a female Spottie & a Southern Painted) never caught it. How long before I should put him back with the others???

Do you currently breed Spotties??? Wouldn't mind getting in touch with you for some babies at some point.

Thanx again

Dean

Thank you for your kind remarks. RI is not that contagious, and you can probably put him back with others after a week or so of treatment as long as he can compete for food. I have never had more than one spottie at a time (except when I was kid, many years ago and collected about 8 for a huge outdoor set up (note: The first year I collected a bunch of them, I released them back to their habitat in the fall). I have never bred them. I am currently cutting back on my collection to about 73 turtles (all species), but many have been in my care for about 20 years or more.

I continue to peruse this forum almost exclusively, even though many have suggested far more specialzed and informative turtle forums, because this is often a "first hit" for people with turtle problems that can benefit from the experienced input of us "geezers" who have "seen that, done that" and can share.

After years of observing Timber wolves in their pack structure you NEVER see yearlings teaching pups, they gravitate towards the older seasoned pack members (geezers) to learn the basics like hunting, avoiding preditors, etc....... guess what I'm gettin at is.... everyone needs a geezer..... to learn form their experience. Wish I'd known you back when 'Tank' my Gopher Tortoise developed a RI & we lost him. Now before any forum trolls in here FREAKS out at me, my Dad bought me Tank at a fruit stand in north Florida for the grand slam total of $2 from some little Mexican kid in 1973. I was 10 at the time & knew NOTHING about keeping tortoises he was a pretty cool little guy tried to constantly mate with dad's hiking boots. Probably had a 12 " carapace, ate EVERYTHING he was given & thrived for about 3 years until 1 winter we figured he got a chill after a power outage in 1 of our Canadian Winter Blizzards. Never did recover dispite all our efforts. I get still sentimental whenever I stop to help a gopher tort across the road down in Florida.

I have had some limited experience with Turtles but snakes are more of my thing. I used to stalk the Woolco pet depts to look through thier 300+ RES babies to find the occasion Painted or Map Turtle even got 2 Diamond Back Terrapins in 1 load, the lady at woolco only charged me for 1 since they 'weren't as pretty as the others'........ awwww the good ole 70's where an Eastern Indigo could be had for $45 as opposed to the $1200 US$'s for a hatchling these days. THEY have to be my fav. have 2.4 of those black beauties.

Feel free to keep in touch via email dean@alphaloup.ca . Thanks again for all your help, oh yeah lil Spottie is doing great, will probably toss him back in with his little harem in a week or so.

Dean

You were lucky to keep that Gopher alive for 3 years. They do notoriously poorly in captivity (I lost a few myself in the early days). I, also, used to stalk Woolco (but it was Woolworth's Five and Ten back then) when you had your choice between painted and unpainted RES hatchlings with a few false maps and a rare cooter that I would always snap up. The real tragedy came in the sixties when they brought in Podocnemis unifilis hatchlings by the thousands from South America and many died in transit.