Our Yearly Tortoise Checkup

Spring means "Tortoise Checkups" and so I made an appointment to take all 5 in today. And then Junior went along to get his second Calcitonin shot. It took two laundry baskets to transport them all. Thankfully, my daughter went along with me to carry one of the baskets. 

Here's a line of torts-- Sissy (box turtle but honorary tortoise) at the top, then Leo the Russian, Curly Q the desert tortoise, and Otis the cherry head (red foot) tortoise at the end. 

All of them got weighed and checked. Otis & Leo & Sissy got beak trims.

Leo took some persuasion to come out of his shell so we could trim his beak. He was not thrilled. See?

Otis wanted to mount all the other tortoises and we had to keep pulling him off of them.

Curly Q peed all over the counter & floor & Dr Folland's tie. I told him he should keep a backup tie in his office on days I come. The last visit with Norman started with Norman projectile pooping onto his tie too. ;)

Sissy got a few dead spots of shell scraped off and we checked her nails. She's missing most of her toe nails on her front feet. And she obviously got bit by a dog at some point in her life too. She's a very sweet box turtle. I don't normally like box turtles, but I really like her. She fits in the zoo well.

Georgie has tripled her weight since last year. She's my leopard tortoise who stayed in the laundry basket for most of the visit. She is not social and doesn't like to interact with anyone. I didn't even get a picture of her.

Junior got his second Calcitonin injection which will help pull calcium back into his bones. I watched him poop out urate pieces this morning but no fecal matter. He still has a lump in his belly, but it is actually smaller and on the opposite side of his belly than it was before. So strange! He's a lot more alert and aware than he was before. But his bones are still rubber. He'll have a long road to recovery.

The vet's staff blocked out a whole hour for me so we could get everyone checked in, examined, and treated. We stayed right on time. It was great!

While it was expensive to have them all checked (just over $500 for all 5 & the shot), it's important to me to keep my regulars updated in the vet's system. They become established clients and we can track weights and such.

Update on the latest Rescues

Sunny had surgery on Thursday and had a rough weekend. The 3rd day always seems to be the worst day. She's more active today. 

------------------------

Leo the Russian tortoise is doing GREAT!! He eats and drinks everyday and looks & acts so much better. He loved the raspberries I gave him today: 

----------------------

The unnamed chameleon is putting on weight and still hates my guts. She should be ready to be adopted out soon. 

-------------------

Drake is doing terribly. :( He's going to the vet again tomorrow. His eyes used to seal shut every few days, but now it's almost twice a day. He acts like he can't breathe either. I'm not sure what else we can do for him. He hates me cleaning his eyes and the stress of it makes him struggle to breathe. 

---------------------

Dash has been eating like a pig!! He will be able get back up to normal weight easily. He loved the raspberries today. I had to flick them with my finger to catch his interest. 

--------------------

Curly will be headed to his new foster home tomorrow. He is active and loves eating. I had him wrapped in a blankie the other night and he loved it! 

--------------------- 

3 of the 6 snakes are going home tomorrow. Phew! That will leave me with 3 snakes, 1 tegu, 1 chameleon, 6 tortoises, and 9 bearded dragons. Only 20 reptiles! That's sorta low for me. :) 

Curly, rescue 161

Curly is a 3 year old male Beardie who came in yesterday. 

I tried to teach him how to drink today, but he was more interested in the greens. 

I'm still trying to figure out his personality. His previous care takers said he's rather squirrely. I haven't seen that yet. 

He did somehow manage to poop three times on the glass. I've never had a Beardie skilled enough to poop on the glass, several inches above the floor. :/ It was all cricket parts too. I will get him on a healthy diet now that he's off sand before I run a fecal test on him. 

Taking in New Rescues

Today I took in two beardies and took pics of what I do when I take in a new Beardie. 

When a Beardie comes in with supplies, it usually looks like this in my front room-- like someone threw up supplies! 

These two tanks had walnut shell in them! Yuck!! 

That had to be the first thing to go-- after I picked out the crickets that weren't being eaten. 

I use a small dustpan and scoop the nasty stuff in the trash. I found old poop, cricket parts, weird things I couldn't recognize, pieces of shed, etc. As I breathed it in, I wondered how a Beardie could survive when inhaling all the dust while digging in the walnut shell. 

Once it's clean, I wipe the whole tank down with a lemon antibacterial wipe. I want to kill any and all germs or parasites that bred in the walnut shell. I let the antibacterial wipe dry on its own. Then I wipe the whole thing down a couple times with a clean, wet washcloth. 

I had pieces of linoleum already cut to a 40 gallon tank so I put that in the bottom of the tank. 

When I pulled the first Beardie out, I cut his nails. Oh! They were long!! 

He did not like it! 

Once his nails were trimmed, I let him run around the room while I cleaned. Teddy and Kreature watched. 

I washed off all the logs and branches in the sink to wash off all the dust. Then I repeated the process with the second tank and Beardie. The whole cleaning process took just over an hour. 

Once the two tanks were set up, I moved them farther away from Kreature's tank. He was a little too interested in them. 

Luckily I had just ordered extra UVB bulbs and had brand new ones to put on their tanks. 

Using two zip ties looped around the light fixture and each other, I hang the UVB lights on the back of the tank with two plant hooks. 

I didn't quite get the lights hung because I had to run to the vet to pick up Sunny, but they are at least on top. 

Both beardies had coil UVB lights. The long tubes hanging inside the tank (not being filtered by a screen) are the best way of getting UVB to a Beardie. 

Thankfully, both beardies came with names! :) It's always a relief when I don't have to pick more names. I'll post about them tomorrow. 

PS. I keep my tanks pretty empty. When you have 15 tanks to care for, it's much easier if you keep them plain. These two will probably get a hammock added in and a few more dishes. I just used what they had so there was familiar objects for them.