Help Help Help! I'm so lost....

[Amanda.L]

Ok so hi! My name is Amanda, I live in Edmonton(our weather sucks), and I'm in need of some massive help. We have 7 russians, 4 of which we have had for over 2 years, and we acquired 3 new ones a month ago. We got them from a breeder here, who's friend no longer wanted his russians. I trusted the breeder and am paying the price. When I got them, they seemed healthy, clear eyes, active after a few days, eating well, no breathing issues. Two days later, I'm giving them a soak and i notice one has some flaking on her shell, with a bit of light scrubbing, I found a whole lot of dried boney tissue. Made an apt with the vet, put her on antibiotics and monitored daily. We had to scrub her with surgical scrub daily and put iodine on her for 20 min then rinse it off. A huge chunk of the boney stuff fell off and it seemed like new shell was growing in nicely underneath. Followed up with the vet and she said it looked way better and to keep monitoring. That was last week, today i'm scrubbing her and found two more major spots, one smaller deep on the bottom , and one on the top of her shell. I'm not so lost at what could be causing this. We have gone over husbandry with them, and outside of struggling to get humidity at 60%, all got the vet's approval stamp. We can't seem to get the humidity higher then 40%, and when we put in any type of mister or anything it shoots it to 75-80.
I have no history on this poor girl, and I want her to be ok, but I'm not sure at all how to handle this. I don't want to keep having to go to the vet, we are continuing the scrubbing and iodine on the new spots. What could be causing this, and how can I help her? Shes in a separate enclosure with the other two that she came with (both seem fine and healthy), and aren't housed with my existing 4. Any advice or help would be immensely appreciated!

 

[wellington]

Hello,and Welcome Adult Russians should on,y have a 30-40% humidity, 30 is probably better. I'm not sure if that is shell rot, which a high humidity can cause or something else. Maybe @Yvonne G will be able to help. Good luck

 

[Amanda.L]

I've had some serious conversations with the vets on this, both have said 60-65% and everything that i heave been told has said 30-40. which is where they are now. There's about 5 different mini climates in their enclosures that allow them to go from about 20-65 on their own.

 

[wellington]

Hatchling and juniors need a higher humidity of 50-70% not adults. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of vets that know,the proper care of tortoises. Most reptile vets don't have much experience with torts and rely on the old, mostly bad info that you will find in a lot of places on the net. I am glad to here though your vet does recommend humidity, most think they are all suppose to be kept dry, no humidity and that rabbit pellet type substrate is except able.

 

[Yvonne G]

Your adult Russian tortoises don't need humidity. Whatever the ambient humidity in the house is, that's enough for them. Until you clear up the shell issue, don't ever moisten the substrate. Just keep the tortoise in a dry habitat with a good soaking every other day or so.

What treatment does the vet have you doing for the shell issues?

 

[Amanda.L]

Thanks Yvonne! That's basically the game plan I have been following. She prescribed injected antibiotics, which we completed about 2 weeks ago, a parasite medication, a surgical scrub that I'm doing daily, and then following with iodine for 20 min and rinsing off. I'm concerned that new ones keep coming up. Is it something that my others can catch? What's causing it and how can I stop it?