A couple months back my husband and I moved the tortoise into a temporary enclosure while we took down our old fence and put up a new one. We have a city easement behind our back fence that leads to a busy street at one end and dead ends into the side of a mountain on the other end. Every day I checked Duma and Shorty morning and night until one morning I checked and found that Duma was missing. She was missing for 3 days... My husband spent each day searching the back yard, easement and mountain side for any sign of her. We had just about gave up hope when on the 4th day I was watching the dogs while they were doing their business (we still had no back fence) and I heard something rustling a little ways up the side of the mountain, I walked closer trying not to get my hopes up when I saw little Duma come tromping out of a patch of dried up aloe clusters. I was so happy I found her i was squealing and started to run to tell my husband when I noticed the chunk of shell was missing from over her back leg and I came to an abrupt halt... she had been chewed on by something. she had 2 spots where her shell was injured, and one part where her shell was missing and created a hole into her shell cavity. The vet cleaned out the wound and gave her a shot of antibiotics, and gave me cleaning instructions... it has been a month and she is still acting like her normal self, so I am hopeful that she wont develop a internal infection. A couple days ago a little thin piece of what I thought was bone came off her shell like a scab revealing new shell growth underneath. I thought for sure she would have scared bone in those spots for the rest of her life... the hole even closed up with healthy looking shell tissue... here are pictures...
Do you think she is past the point of worrying about infection? now that the hole is closed up do think its safe to let her go back outside? also she didnt gain any weight for the past month until this week she put on almost 10oz...is that normal for a injured tortoise?
as you can see this is the thin piece of what I thought was bone... I guess it was a scab?
Here is the spot the "scab" came off of. the open hole was the size of a pencil eraser and was to the far right of the wind (when looking at the picture).
You see that little part that is still covering part of her leg... see how it is actually split away from the rest of the shell? that is where the hole into her shell cavity used to be.
This is the second wound... this wasnt as bad... it too has a little piece of "scab" pealing off and new growth beneath. the only issue is that little corner at the seam of the two scutes that is now growing upwards like a spike... I hope it will stop growing that way.
this is the last injury. its a lot smaller then the other two and is just over her leg.
Do you think she is past the point of worrying about infection? now that the hole is closed up do think its safe to let her go back outside? also she didnt gain any weight for the past month until this week she put on almost 10oz...is that normal for a injured tortoise?
as you can see this is the thin piece of what I thought was bone... I guess it was a scab?
Here is the spot the "scab" came off of. the open hole was the size of a pencil eraser and was to the far right of the wind (when looking at the picture).
You see that little part that is still covering part of her leg... see how it is actually split away from the rest of the shell? that is where the hole into her shell cavity used to be.
This is the second wound... this wasnt as bad... it too has a little piece of "scab" pealing off and new growth beneath. the only issue is that little corner at the seam of the two scutes that is now growing upwards like a spike... I hope it will stop growing that way.
this is the last injury. its a lot smaller then the other two and is just over her leg.