# tortoise lost its teeth



## dr_butterfly (Aug 20, 2012)

hi, my tortoise seems like she cant bite and cut off her food with her own, its like she tries her best to tear it off then she gets exhausted and walks away. he has a crack in his beak and he seems like he cant eat well except when i feed him. how can i help make his beak stronger and how can i make it become sharper again?

he urinates and defecates very normally, his activity and everything is normal...the beak has been his only issue. any advice? thanks in advance


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## dmmj (Aug 20, 2012)

It might be painful to eat right now, trimming it might help, as to your title they don't have teeth.


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## cemmons12 (Aug 20, 2012)

dr_butterfly said:


> hi, my tortoise seems like she cant bite and cut off her food with her own, its like she tries her best to tear it off then she gets exhausted and walks away. he has a crack in his beak and he seems like he cant eat well except when i feed him. how can i help make his beak stronger and how can i make it become sharper again?
> 
> he urinates and defecates very normally, his activity and everything is normal...the beak has been his only issue. any advice? thanks in advance



One thought: you can use a food grinder/chopper to make the food into small pieces, I did that a lot for Cooper when he was a baby boy. He ate it like there was no tomorrow, then he would stop, wait on me to put it back into a pile, and eat somemore! Then, (he is so spoiled) he would stand by his food bowl and wait on me to wipe his face off. I guess after doing it for so long its just what he got use to. I hope someone else will be able to be more help then I. Good luck!


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## JoesMum (Aug 20, 2012)

I suggest you post a photo of your torts head and beak (You may find photobucket easier than wrestling with the forum's photo handler). 

Is it overgrown as well as cracked?

How big is your tort and what food does she struggle with?


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## wellington (Aug 20, 2012)

Like already mentioned. I would chop his food up, so he doesn't have to try and rip or bite it off. Post a pic of the beak and maybe someone can tell you if it needs to see a vet or needs to be trimmed, or to just let it heal on it's own.


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## dr_butterfly (Aug 20, 2012)

well yup i believe they dont have teeth, i just thought of a catchy title 

well, i'll attach a photo of how it looks, its like cracked down vertically. he struggles with any sort of leaves i give. i feed him romaine lettuce and arugula and some times carrots or cucumber slices. 

@cemmons12, lol thats so cute . i guess my tortoise is enjoying the spoon feeding life he has now. i tear off the leaves into bits that he could eat and i feed him. he seems so happy about that! even the water, he is lazy to drink by himself. and right now i'm free but in the coming days i'll get busy and he wont have someone to pamper and spoon feed him anymore xD he will have to work on that alone.


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## JoesMum (Aug 20, 2012)

Hmmm... If your tort is presented with something irresistible like a strawberry will it still give up?

Some hand fed torts start seeing the person hand feeding them as the food and won't bother with the same stuff just left on the floor for them.... Lazy little wotsits!


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## Jacqui (Aug 20, 2012)

You will still need to do something about the beak. If you don't the beak may continue to crack , even as it is growing out. It may require a series of trims, but you do need to get him to the point where he can eat on his own.


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## dr_butterfly (Aug 20, 2012)

he used to eat on his own perfectly, even the hard part of the romain lettuce he used to bite it on his own...its just a week now since i started to feed him this way. the crack is quite recent. and while feeding him he does bite me at times but his bite doesnt hurt as the other tort i have when i feed her that way. 

how can i trim his beak? it doesnt sound like an easy thing to do.


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## dr_butterfly (Aug 20, 2012)

tried my best to get a shot of his beak, hope its clear











and that is how big he is:


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## Yvonne G (Aug 20, 2012)

I've seen that before on a steppe tortoise. His problem looked exactly like your tortoise's problem. The crack on both sides of the bottom beak, making the middle section loose. Also the bottom now doesn't meet the top, so no matter how hard he tries, he doesn't have a cutting edge. You're going to have to chop up the food into very small pieces and pile it up for him.

The reason my steppe tortoise had this problem was because of MBD. Metabolic bone disease. Not enough calcium and vitamin d3 to make the bones, shell and beak strong. You can bring him around, but its going to take some time. In order for the crack to not keep going into the new growth, you have to stop him from using the beak. That means you might as well get used to cutting up the food in small pieces, because you'll be doing it for a very long time.

Don't use too much calcium because they don't like the taste of it. But without the sun, all the calcium in the world does no good. They MUST have sun to make the calcium work.


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## dmmj (Aug 20, 2012)

wouldn't it be better for now, to make a paste or something that does not require much work?


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## Yvonne G (Aug 20, 2012)

No, chopping is fine. My steppe tortoise's beak looked exactly like this Greek's (?) beak. Because they use their tongue to get the food into the mouth, you just need to chop it up so they don't have to bite it off. They'll tongue in the small pieces just fine.


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## dr_butterfly (Aug 21, 2012)

thanks alot emysemys 
and thanks guys for your help. 
well i hope that his beak heals up fast. and i will continue to feed him those small bits of food as i'm doing now. indeed they use their tongue to stick the food onto it then grab it inside their mouth till they swallow it 

i do use calcium supplements, but that has been for about 2 weeks now. i actually sandwich it in the lettuce pieces so that they wont feel the taste much if possible or perhaps not at all. and as regard the sun, i try to put him forcefully in it as he just tries to hide and sleep more often.


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## cemmons12 (Aug 21, 2012)

Keep us updated on his condition please.


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## dr_butterfly (Aug 21, 2012)

sure, ofcourse i will


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