Baby Food soaks

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llaperle

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Leonard, my 5 month-old Hermanns is having a carrot baby food soak as we speak.

The soak is about 50/50 food and warm water.

He is under the heat lamp to keep warm.

I tried mixing some of his clacium powder in with limited success. I'll try and get some liquid vitamins tomorrow.

How often should I soak him?

I posted earlier on the Hermanns forum to get this far, just wondering about the specifics of these soaks for my under-the-weather little guy.

LORI
 

Kristina

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Yvonne G

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Hi Lori:

First of all, the baby food soaks will help with the puffy eyes, but won't do anything for the soft plastron.

Maggie (maggie3fan) is a good one to ask about getting calcium into babies. She has had to do it a lot and is quite experienced with it. I'm going to ask if she'll make up a thread that we can all go by. I'm getting old and its hard for me to remember stuff, so I need it written out for me.

I've got a couple of Texas tortoise babies that have soft shells too. Because they're too small to get a grasp on their head and open their mouths, I've had to put liquid calcium into their soaking water and hope for the best. I bought Calcionate online. It smells like oranges, so I don't think it tastes bad for them.

But, all the calcium in the world won't help unless they also get the sun or have a good UVB light to make the calcium work.

Good luck with your baby. We're all pulling for you.
 

llaperle

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Thank you both.

This may sound crazy, and I am still very guarded, but he seems a tiny bit better after just one 30 minute carrot soak!

His eyes are open and he is walking around a bit. The concave part of his plastron seems level again too.

I will keep you all posted on his progress tomorrow, and maybe even throw in a pic of him in the tub tomorrow
 

dmmj

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I am an official supporter of the baby food soaks, I recently revived 3, 3 toed box turtles I will explain further on another thread, but the little guy was not eating or anything, I have been doing baby food soaks now for over a week and he has shown marked improvement, he is not 100% but the other day he ate an earthworm all by himself, without the soaks I would imagine he would be dead by now. keep up the soaks until he is eating on his own I say (mine soaks in sweet potato BTW. high in vitamin A)
 

llaperle

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Tonight he seemed so much better after his soak again. He actually even took a few bites of the dandelion I gave him. This was the first I have seen him eat in days.

Tonight I added liquid calcium and polyvitamins to the soak.

Does anybody do babyfood soaks more than once a day? I'm tempted to do it twice a day. I have been doing one water and one babyfood soak for the last two days, but the water just doesn't seem to have the same effect.

LORI
 

Kristina

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The reason that I suggested doing one baby food soak and one plain water is so that he can get a real drink if need be. You could throw in another baby food soak, but make sure he gets at least 5 minutes in some plain water or electrolyte solution as well.
 
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