Baby not eating or opening eyes

[CJSTorts]

A friend of mine got a baby sully on July 10th from Eric at South Central Herpetological. He has multiple hides, coco fiber bedding and moss. His temps are good and he gets soaked everyday. For the past 2 days he has not eaten and will not open his eyes. The only way he opens his eyes is if she gently rubs them with a wet q-tip. She said yesterday when she did this there was some dirt in his eyes. Today some dried skin came off and some more dirt. I have told her to do baby food soaks and offer his favorite foods. Could this just be from dirt getting in his eyes or possibly something more serious? Any advise is greatly appreciated.

 

[wellington]

How is the baby being housed. Sounds like it may be too dry. Read the threads at the bottom of my post. They are great for raising a healthy, happy, smooth sulcata.

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Also, if they are using the coil type UVB bulb, tell them to get rid of it. That could be the problem. The coil bulbs causes damage to torts eyes.

 

[TortoiseBoy1999]

Sounds like the baby is to dry :/

 

[AustinASU]

I'd say it's a vitamin A deficiency, tell him to get some of this, it helped my torts out so much with dry eyes, tell him to put two drops in each eye twice a day for a week and they will be golden. http://www.wag.com/reptile/p/zoo-me...pla&ca_sku=ZML-154&ca_gpa=pla&ca_kw={keyword}

 

[FlapJackrage]

Do you think it could be a RI? I had a Russian with the same problem a while back. Does he have puss coming from his eyes?

 

[CJSTorts]

No puss or discharge of any kind. I told her how to make a humid hide and to spray him daily along with soaks. She has some of those eye drops already, so she is using those too.

 

[dmmj]

Deficient in vitamin A is very rare in tortoises. What type of bulb are you using?

 

[CJSTorts]

dmmj, she is using, zoo med basking bulbs and zoo med reptisun 10.0 uvb.

I got this email from her today. "I am taking him to the vet today, last night he tried to eat and fell asleep I had to pull the grass out of his mouth, in doing so I noticed his plastron has sunk in so I weighted him and he is back down to weight he was when I got him, I hope it not to late, I will be crushed!"