Our 4 new leopards are still pretty sick... the smallest female and male are doing okay... they are opening their eyes, moving around, eating, etc.

We have all of them inside because we had some out-of-the-blue cold front come in today. So they are in our laundry room with a heater bringing the room to 85 degrees.

Our vet recommended to run a humidifier for them, but I always heard leopards did better in drier conditions?

What do y'all think?

The two larger females are still pretty lethargic and have not eaten. We've soaked them once today for 20 minutes. We are having to give them eye ointment 3x a day, shots of antibiotics each day, wormed them yesterday. They also had IV's yesterday, as they were severely dehydrated.

I hate to ask this question, but regarding tortoises, when do you reach the "point of no return?"

A humidifier works very well for a tortoise that is recovering from an upper respiratory infection. Quite frequently, the upper respiratory problem is due to too dry conditions, and the humidifier helps a lot. My sister has a 45lb Sulcata and lives in Oregon, where people don't tan, they rust...and her sulcata had an URI. She treated him with the standard dose of antibiotic for the recommended number of days, but the runny nose wouldn't go away. She put a humidifier in his heated outdoor shed and within a couple days the runny nose had cleared up.

You are the only person who can answer the question about when to give up on your animals. Quite often it comes down to how much can you afford to spend. I do have to say, though, that you are just starting. It always looks bad at first. I think they are on the road to recovery. Don't give up yet.

Yvonne

Thanks, Yvonne... I feel better already... hopefully the leos will feel better overnight. We set up the humidifier in our ICU (aka laundry room).

We'll see what will happen!

~ Autumn

I am glad to read that they are doing better, I think the humidifier will do well, I live in AZ and the winters here are so dry, so I run a humidifier in my tort room during the winter. Don't give up yet you just got them, once you get them better you will see that they are a joy to have. Good Luck and I hope they get better very soon!

Well , we lost the big girl last night. Very upset about it. We are strongly considering having the body autopsied (or whatever they call it for reptiles!) The vet thinks it was pnumonia, which of course is a prolonged illness (not happening overnight). We know for sure she had worms and an eye infection and RI, but it might have been much worse than just RI. She was just so sick.

The other Leos are doing alright... I think. The medium size girl passed some green liquid poo last night, and I think that might be related to the worms they had. I'm encouraged that she passed some poo. Maybe she'll start to eat more today.

I'll keep y'all posted.

That's pretty sad, Autumn: Was she really big...as in full grown? Its expensive to have a necropsy done, but it is to your benefit (and the benefit of the tortoises she was in contact with) to have it done. If there is a state lab in your area, that's about the cheapest place to have it done. Here's hoping for the best for the other torts. Did you de-worm with Flagyl too?

Yvonne

Oh my, I am so sorry to hear about your loss. I sure hope the other Leopards do well.

Were you able to do a necroscopy?

ARKelly

I am so sorry you lost the big girl.. I would keep a really close eye on the other three since they were exposed to her. I hope the other three get better real soon!!

She was almost 9 inches... so not quite fully grown. It seems that today the other 3 torts have gotten a bit better. It was in the low 80s today, so they got some sunlight. The little girl and boy are definately doing better. The medium girl, like I said, passed some icky green poo last night. She's still a bit weak, but is opening her eyes more. No, we did not worm with Flagyl. We only used Panacur.

Panacur kills the parasites that look like "worms", the kind you can see. Flagyl kills the microscopic protazoan type parasites. If you are seeing a lot of mucous around the feces, or mucous in place of feces, that's an indication of protazoa. Ask your vet about it.

Yvonne