Manouria Emys not eating

[MEEJogja]

Hi everyone,

I need some advice. Around a month ago our biggest, female tortoise Feti started acting strangely. She became moody, stopped eating and started spending every night soaking. We have seen her go from 25cm to over 40cm over the years and she is very beloved to us.

Initially she would eat a small amount of leaves, and out of concern I pulled her out of her nest and placed her in front of a bowl of food, which she ate without much enthusiasm. I have not seen even reluctant eating in about 2 weeks.

I made an appointment with a very well known reptile vet who concluded she must be Gravid. He has seen many Emys that have stopped eating and none were as active and strong as her. Plus it's the season for it etc. I was elated! That was a couple of weeks ago now, and I prepared a large area full of leaf litter, cut grass etc expecting her to start nest building but alas nothing materialised. She is still reasonably active, moving from one place to another, soaking etc, but is still not eating and I'm getting worried again.

I would like to take her for some scan to confirm whether she is gravid, or whether we need to explore other options (impaction, parasites... who knows). My problem is that the reptile vet is a very long way away and boxing her up and taking her there is a several hour long ordeal being bounced around in a car. There are other vets near by who I could contact, but I need to be able to explain to them what I want.

I'm guessing an ultrasound wont be much good. Is an X-ray required? Any other advice?

A friend recently asked me round to help administer Panacur to an Emys that had stopped eating. That was his second last from a colony of 9 tortoises that all went the same way. He offered me his last but I declined, not having the space to quarantine, or wanting to take the risk by introducing another, potentially sick tortoise to my group. His tortoise, maybe further down to road, or maybe with a different problem, looked like it had given up on life, whereas Feti is still active and will thrash around furiously if handled. That gives me hope but also makes me worried at the same time.

 

[Tom]

An x-ray can rule out a few possibilities, or confirm them.

 

[TammyJ]

Can you post some pictures of her?

 

[MEEJogja]

Thanks for your replies! This is her at present. Excuse the dirty water, I normally drain and scrub it each morning but she was in there this morning and I'm trying not to disturb her as much as possible.

She moves around the enclosure and likes to hide in piles of stuff which I would normally be happy to see.



Still on the hunt for a nearby vet with an x-ray machine. I might have to bite the bullet and take her back to the reptile specialist, who probably doesn't have an x-ray machine either but may be able to use ultrasound to get a glimpse of what's going on.

We do have a male in the enclosure but he is not bothering her at all currently, in fact you could even think he's deliberately keeping a distance, so I don't think stress is the cause.
Besides being gravid I'm thinking impaction is most likely but I really hope that isn't the case. I need to determine what's going on ASAP.

 

[MEEJogja]

So this ended tragically. She was not gravid. That was, in my opinion, a very lazy diagnosis by the vet in the first instance and ultimately led to her death. It was chelonian herpesvirus.

Apart from not eating, she was otherwise behaving normally. She was active and moving from one area of the enclosure to another, although spending increasing amounts of time soaking. There were no major red flags.

In the same way I had done weeks before I boxed her up and took her to the animal hospital for an x-ray to confirm the Vets diagnosis. When we arrived, she was frothing at the mouth and nose. She had not been previously, and me and my wife had been keeping a very close eye on her. Perhaps it was the stress of the journey, or perhaps it was clear discharge that we failed to notice. Concerning, but I was thinking that perhaps the early stages of a respiratory infection had been the cause of all this and although now more severe, a dose of antibiotics would sort her out.

After the hospital, my brother took her to the vets to examine the x-ray. I had a work meeting. She was still active at that point and apart from the symptoms of a respiratory infection, seemed ok.

The vet called me and said her condition had deteriorated and asked whether they could keep her under observation over night. They would dose her with liquids and antibiotics as required. Thinking that was not care I could provide at home I agreed. My wife arrived at the vets shortly after, demanded a bigger cage for her and came home quite emotional. She said that in forcing her mouth open they broke the fringe of her beak. The next morning they told me she had died.

So, we saw her go from 2.5 to 12+ kg to dead just as she was approaching maturity. Her last day included being boxed up for several hours, having her beak broken, and being thrown into a dog kennel to die. It is really heartbreaking and there any many things I should have done differently and may have resulted in her surviving. I could have taken her for an x-ray a week earlier but we were still optimistic she was gravid. I could have examined her mouth, or asked the vet to do so... we did see her opening and closing her mouth in a strange way weeks ago. I could have got another vet to make a house call!

Now I am obviously concerned about the rest of the group. It turns out there is a local vet with a 'reptile specialist' who makes house calls. I had him out to check up on the rest of the group, after spending several evenings reading research papers on reptile herpesvirus. By all accounts when symptoms show you must immediately dose the animal with Acyclovir... or another ...clovir (ventriclovir, gentraclovir are probably words I just made up). I was quizzing the house call vet and just listening for the word clovir, which never came. He prescribed an 'immunity boosting syrup' -_- None are displaying any symptoms and are very lively and healthy at this point in time, on the insistence of my wife I gave them each a small amount of syrup which probably did more harm than good.

The takeaway is that the entire group is likely infected with a type of herpesvirus. It can lay dormant for months, years or decades and is likely only a problem when the animal is immunosuppressed due to another reason. All ...clovir medication is very hard on the animals organs and it seems very much like it's not worth dosing preventatively.

My hopes and dreams of getting a breeding loan animal, or introducing another to the group are dashed for now.

 

[Sarah2020]

Really sorry to read this tragic post. I really hope the rest of the tortoises avoid it and that you and your family recover from this sadness. Thanks for sharing and all the best.

 

[MEEJogja]

Thank you Sarah, I should have mentioned that this happened a day after my second post... Several weeks ago now. I was negligent but not that negligent.

 

[TammyJ]

I am very sorry that this happened. I understand how you feel.