Large bladder stone in enclosure this morning.

[Nicole edwards]

I woke up this morning and found this balddar stone in rockys cage. Is it large enough to be concerned about? He is soaked twice a day and usually they come out then but he's never had one this size. He is 7-8 months old and weighs 170 grams. He is very healthy and loves to eat! He's been growing like a weed lately. Thanks for the advice in advance.

 

[Yvonne G]

That's pretty scary, alright. We're hearing more and more about tortoises being soaked daily and yet showing signs of dehydration. I wonder if it might be a good idea to do sub-Q fluids??? Let's ask @deadheadvet

 

[Nicole edwards]

That's pretty scary, alright. We're hearing more and more about tortoises being soaked daily and yet showing signs of dehydration. I wonder if it might be a good idea to do sub-Q fluids??? Let's ask @deadheadvet

Thanks!! Yes I've reasearched and it says most of the time it's caused by dehydration. If anything he is over hydrated. He gets soaked twice a day at the least and always has a supply of fresh water to drink. I just makes me nervous because I had no idea this was even in him. No signs whatsoever.

 

[Nicole edwards]

@Tom do you have any input on this?

 

[Tom]

What was the source of this baby and how was it started before you got it?

What food and supplements do you typically feed?

 

[Nicole edwards]

What was the source of this baby and how was it started before you got it?

What food and supplements do you typically feed?

Im not sure to tell how he was started, but evey since I've had him I've made sure he was getting soaked twice a day. He eats a mixture of kale, parsley, turnip greens, baby spinach, and mustard greens everyday. Every other day he eats around 10 pieces of soaked Mazuri with his greens and on the days he doesn't eat Mazuri I give him around 5 these tortoise bites pictured below.

 

[Yvonne G]

Change the greens to endive, escarole and weeds. The greens you feed are pretty high in oxalates, and that contributes to the stone formation.

 

[Nicole edwards]

Change the greens to endive, escarole and weeds. The greens you feed are pretty high in oxalates, and that contributes to the stone formation.

Where could I get those?

 

[Yvonne G]

If your store doesn't sell them, ask the produce manager to order it for you. I buy it at my regular grocery store...except for the weeds. I get them out of my yard. Mallow, filaree, dandelion, prickly lettuce, there are many, many edible weeds growing now.

 

[Nicole edwards]

If your store doesn't sell them, ask the produce manager to order it for you. I buy it at my regular grocery store...except for the weeds. I get them out of my yard. Mallow, filaree, dandelion, prickly lettuce, there are many, many edible weeds growing now.

Okay I will definitely check my grocery store for that and I will look for the weeds, I live in an apartment at the moment so I don't trust the grass and weeds outside of where I live. Don't know if they've been sprayed with anything harmful

 

[Tom]

View attachment 165757
Im not sure to tell how he was started, but evey since I've had him I've made sure he was getting soaked twice a day. He eats a mixture of kale, parsley, turnip greens, baby spinach, and mustard greens everyday. Every other day he eats around 10 pieces of soaked Mazuri with his greens and on the days he doesn't eat Mazuri I give him around 5 these tortoise bites pictured below.
View attachment 165757

All of the following is intended to explain and be helpful. Please don't take offense as none is intended at all.

You can't "tell" how a baby was started in most cases unless it was really dry for too long and the carapace offers some clues. You'd have to hear how a baby was started from the breeder. Only the person who started the tortoise, and anyone they told, knows how it was started. I asked this because these stones can begin very early in some dry started babies.

Okay, on to the diet. You have been feeding all the things that I say NOT to feed, for this very reason. I mean no offense, but I harp on this stuff all the time and sooooooo many people just go to the grocery store and buy these things because its easier and they don't know what else to do. It takes a little effort and creativity to find the right foods for your tortoise, but if I can do it for 50+ tortoises and rarely use grocery store stuff, surely I'm not crazy to think that other people can feed just one tortoise without resorting to the grocery store, right? My tone here is not scolding, but conversational. Just talking tortoises and making a point. Please don't read it the wrong way.

ALL of the foods you are feeding are fine as a SMALL part of a varied diet. I feed those things sometimes too. The difference is, my tortoises might see kale once every two months. Then spinach or mustard greens 3 times a year, mixed in with grass, leaves and weeds. Turnip greens as part of a weedy mix once or twice a month in spring and early summer when they sprout here. Parsley, twice a year in a mix. Mazuri? Once or twice a week during the summer months when my weeds aren't up and growing.

I think you get the idea. All of those foods are okay to feed "once in a while", but NONE of them should be a staple that is fed regularly. Okay… Enough about what you've been doing wrong. Let's get helpful: Its time for you to get creative and broaden your horizons. You might need to look into some new grocery stores that offer more variety and you are going to need to get into doing some gardening one way or another. Endive and escarole should be easy to find near you. Do you have a "Smart and Final" near you. Look for "Santa Barbara Mix" there. Those little wheat grass plots are for sale at every pet shop and many grocery stores. You can buy seeds online and grow lots of your own stuff in pots near your apartments windows, or provide your own growing lights if need be. The marijuana industry has made it so anyone can easily grow all sorts of plants indoors anywhere. The internet is full of all sorts of seed mixes. I'm sure you have friends, neighbors and family members nearby that have back yards with stuff growing. Talk to them. Go take a look. I don't know where you are, but you might find hibiscus, opuntia, mulberry leaves, grape leaves and all sorts of weeds. All of these are common around the country. Scavenge whatever you can from safe sources and grow the rest yourself.

What about weeds in unincorporated areas? Pesticides and herbicides are expensive and most cities don't go around wasting them all over the place. Look for bugs on wild weeds like spiders, aphids or ladybugs. Look for holes in the leaves made by leaf eating insects. If you see these signs in a wild area, chances are good that the weed is chemical free. I have lots of areas like this around me that I scavenge from. Been doing it for decades.

I don't know about those tortoise bites you are feeding, but I'd stop that right away. I don't have the issue you are having and I don't feed that product, so it might be a contributing factor. Not worth the risk in my opinion.

Here again is what you should be feeding: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/for-those-who-have-a-young-sulcata.76744/ Notice that NONE of the items you are feeding are on this list. This list will require more than a trip to the store, but once you get some things going, you won't even need to go to the store. Just get some scissors and a tub and cut the days food fresh. I recycle old spring mix tubs and put cut grass and weeds in them to store in the fridge so I have several days supply ready to go. Fresh cut weeds and leaves last a lot longer in the fridge than grocery store greens too. So if you collected on a day off or a weekend, it would be easy to store enough for a week or two in the fridge. If you feed opuntia one day, Mazuri one or two days, mulberry leaves one day, grape leaves another day, you'd only need endive, escarole or weeds two or three days a week. Add in various grasses that you either find or grow, and you will have a great diet and no more stones.

I hope my good intentions come across in these words and I hope all this info helps.

 

[sibi]

Change the greens to endive, escarole and weeds. The greens you feed are pretty high in oxalates, and that contributes to the stone formation.

That's exactly what I would've have said. My tort had the same problem and I found that it partially was because of how he was started (dry), but, also because I was feeding him some spring mix which had a lot of spinach. Also, collard greens, kale, and mustard greens cause oxalates which cause stone formation in the bladder. He also may have a propensity to develop stones in the future because of how he was started, but it can be greatly reduced by feeding him foods/weeds suggested above.

 

[Nicole edwards]

All of the following is intended to explain and be helpful. Please don't take offense as none is intended at all.

You can't "tell" how a baby was started in most cases unless it was really dry for too long and the carapace offers some clues. You'd have to hear how a baby was started from the breeder. Only the person who started the tortoise, and anyone they told, knows how it was started. I asked this because these stones can begin very early in some dry started babies.

Okay, on to the diet. You have been feeding all the things that I say NOT to feed, for this very reason. I mean no offense, but I harp on this stuff all the time and sooooooo many people just go to the grocery store and buy these things because its easier and they don't know what else to do. It takes a little effort and creativity to find the right foods for your tortoise, but if I can do it for 50+ tortoises and rarely use grocery store stuff, surely I'm not crazy to think that other people can feed just one tortoise without resorting to the grocery store, right? My tone here is not scolding, but conversational. Just talking tortoises and making a point. Please don't read it the wrong way.

ALL of the foods you are feeding are fine as a SMALL part of a varied diet. I feed those things sometimes too. The difference is, my tortoises might see kale once every two months. Then spinach or mustard greens 3 times a year, mixed in with grass, leaves and weeds. Turnip greens as part of a weedy mix once or twice a month in spring and early summer when they sprout here. Parsley, twice a year in a mix. Mazuri? Once or twice a week during the summer months when my weeds aren't up and growing.

I think you get the idea. All of those foods are okay to feed "once in a while", but NONE of them should be a staple that is fed regularly. Okay… Enough about what you've been doing wrong. Let's get helpful: Its time for you to get creative and broaden your horizons. You might need to look into some new grocery stores that offer more variety and you are going to need to get into doing some gardening one way or another. Endive and escarole should be easy to find near you. Do you have a "Smart and Final" near you. Look for "Santa Barbara Mix" there. Those little wheat grass plots are for sale at every pet shop and many grocery stores. You can buy seeds online and grow lots of your own stuff in pots near your apartments windows, or provide your own growing lights if need be. The marijuana industry has made it so anyone can easily grow all sorts of plants indoors anywhere. The internet is full of all sorts of seed mixes. I'm sure you have friends, neighbors and family members nearby that have back yards with stuff growing. Talk to them. Go take a look. I don't know where you are, but you might find hibiscus, opuntia, mulberry leaves, grape leaves and all sorts of weeds. All of these are common around the country. Scavenge whatever you can from safe sources and grow the rest yourself.

What about weeds in unincorporated areas? Pesticides and herbicides are expensive and most cities don't go around wasting them all over the place. Look for bugs on wild weeds like spiders, aphids or ladybugs. Look for holes in the leaves made by leaf eating insects. If you see these signs in a wild area, chances are good that the weed is chemical free. I have lots of areas like this around me that I scavenge from. Been doing it for decades.

I don't know about those tortoise bites you are feeding, but I'd stop that right away. I don't have the issue you are having and I don't feed that product, so it might be a contributing factor. Not worth the risk in my opinion.

Here again is what you should be feeding: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/for-those-who-have-a-young-sulcata.76744/ Notice that NONE of the items you are feeding are on this list. This list will require more than a trip to the store, but once you get some things going, you won't even need to go to the store. Just get some scissors and a tub and cut the days food fresh. I recycle old spring mix tubs and put cut grass and weeds in them to store in the fridge so I have several days supply ready to go. Fresh cut weeds and leaves last a lot longer in the fridge than grocery store greens too. So if you collected on a day off or a weekend, it would be easy to store enough for a week or two in the fridge. If you feed opuntia one day, Mazuri one or two days, mulberry leaves one day, grape leaves another day, you'd only need endive, escarole or weeds two or three days a week. Add in various grasses that you either find or grow, and you will have a great diet and no more stones.

I hope my good intentions come across in these words and I hope all this info helps.

Thanks! Didn't take it offensive at all. I need all of the help I can get! Thank you for explaining it!! I am about to place an order on tortoisesuplly.com what seed mix would you recommend?

 

[Tom]

Thanks! Didn't take it offensive at all. I need all of the help I can get! Thank you for explaining it!! I am about to place an order on tortoisesuplly.com what seed mix would you recommend?

I like the "Testudo Seed Mix" from Tyler. His other stuff is good too. Check out the "herbal hay" too. This is great to add fiber and variety to your other greens and one bag lasts a long time.

Then for a grass mix, I have done a lot of side-by-side comparisons and nothing comes even close to this mix: http://www.groworganic.com/premium-horse-pasture-mix-irrigation.html
This site also has a bunch of other good stuff, like endive seeds. I go crazy ordering from that site every year.

Also get some spineless opuntia from Tyler. Feed out some, but plant a few pads in pots and leave them in sunny spots. Opuntia is really easy to grow in pots and its great tortoise food and super convenient.

If there is a feed store near you that sells horse supplies, you can start adding small amounts of finely chopped up, re-hydrated grass hay to your mix too. If not, Tyler sells this too. When your tortoise gets bigger, grass hay will make up a large percentage of the diet from day to day. Good to introduce it early. I prefer orchard grass hay and bermuda hay.

 

[bryantmarden]

It was happen to my Sulcata. And suddenly she has two big stone in her bladder. My advice is take him to a reptile qualified pet.

 

[sibi]

It was happen to my Sulcata. And suddenly she has two big stone in her bladder. My advice is take him to a reptile qualified pet.

In your particular case, I would agree. Your tort needs to see a vet. However, in most cases where there are stones that had passed and are worrisome, Tom gave some excellent suggestions on how to prevent stones from developing in the first place. And a visit to a vet will be costly and nothing can be done except to provide advice like Tom is giving you for free.
Having said that, your tort's stones are problematic on several levels. For starters, the stones look humongous and it's likely that the stone on the left is in the bladder and it's too large to pass on its own. I really hope this isn't the case and that she'll be able to pass the stones. I would NOT recommend having surgery by cutting out part of the plastron to get to the stones. Survival rate of that sort of surgery isn't good. If I were you, I'd just make sure her diet is changed, you provide daily soaks, perhaps even twice daily, and if she doesn't drink water on her own, I'd even consider having a vet hydrated her if needed. Then, just leave her be. As she grows, and the stones doesn't have more oxalates that can attach itself to them, the stones will look smaller and smaller as she gets larger and larger.

In the wild, some sulcatas are found to have stones they've lived with for years w/o incident. I have a 4 year old that has a stone that never passed since he was 8 months old. It's still there although it looks considerably smaller as he grew.