Need immediate help. Turtle hasn't eaten in over a week

[spacegravity4me]

I already tried asking on reddit but not much help. Need some help. Box turtle not eating.

I have a 30 year old box turtle that I've had since I was a child. A year and a half ago I took her outside to let her walk around and she immediately ate a pebble. I freaked out and starting researching, googling and looking for advice but everything I found said that she'd probably pass it. Time went by and she was fine. Her diet lately has consisted of night crawlers which she absolutely loves, but she also eats canned box turtle food and lettuce at times. About 7 or 8 days ago I noticed she wasn't really eating. I gave her some time, let her sit in some water for a while to really soak and maybe clear herself out. Nothing. I tried to feed her every day but she just sat there. I bought apples, bananas, raspberries, anything I could think of, and still nothing. So I'm freaking out, broke as a joke with 300 dollars in my bank account and decided to take her to the vet Saturday. I caught them up on everything, told them she wasn't eating and about the rock. They wanted to take an X-ray, which I figured was the best thing, and I said okay. So they walk back in and show me the picture and you could see where her bones were, all solid white, and then a small, round, white object where her stomach is, likely the stupid rock. He gave her a laxative, some fluids and some calcium. 200 dollars later and that's all I know. He said to keep her hydrated and hopefully she'll pass it. He said he probably wouldn't attempt surgery cause it would likely kill her and be extremely expensive..I just wish I could reach up in there and pull the thing out myself. I really don't know what to do. I'm freaking out and starting to panic now cause I'm afraid she's going to starve to death and I really don't want to lose her. I feel like it's all my fault, I never should have taken her out that day and I should have taken her to the vet sooner but I've been living off 15 dollars an hour for the last 2 years and she legitimately seemed okay... I let her soak more yesterday for about 2 hours in the kitchen sink. I don't know what else to do, please help.

 

[Yvonne G]

Try to get her to eat wet food to help the rock slip.out. . . watermelon, cucumber, aloe, etc. If she WILL take food, put a few drops of mineral oil on the food item. It's non absorptive and will coat the rock.

One thing I.learned through experience (read 'mistake') Put her in water slightly deeper than soak water and go off and forget her (but check frequently to make sure she's not getting into trouble). Scrambling around, trying to get out makes them empty their bowels.

 

[jeff kushner]

SpaceG, the response you have above is from someone with an awesome level of talent. Remember the "Bo Knows" TV commercials? Well Yvonne knows! Many of us have benefited and our turtles are happier too. Good luck SG!

 

[mark1]

a 30yr old box turtle, you sure it's a her? has she laid eggs before?

 

[TammyJ]

Can we see the XRay? It sounds strange to me that it's a year and a half since she ate the pebble and it's only recently causing trouble??!

 

[wellington]

Can we see the XRay? It sounds strange to me that it's a year and a half since she ate the pebble and it's only recently causing trouble??!

My thought too. I doubt it's the pebble that is stopping her from eating.

 

[wellington]

Give us a run down of everything you do in keeping her. All lights, heat, substrate, enclosure, temps, everything. Do you brumate her over winter? Any calcium or vitamins given?

 

[spacegravity4me]

Try to get her to eat wet food to help the rock slip.out. . . watermelon, cucumber, aloe, etc. If she WILL take food, put a few drops of mineral oil on the food item. It's non absorptive and will coat the rock.

One thing I.learned through experience (read 'mistake') Put her in water slightly deeper than soak water and go off and forget her (but check frequently to make sure she's not getting into trouble). Scrambling around, trying to get out makes them empty their bowels.

Hey, thank you, I really appreciate it. I tried to get her to eat some today but she wouldn't. I let her sit in the sink like you described for about 2 hours but she never had a bowl movement. Also tried the tooth brush vibration trick and no dice. :/

 

[spacegravity4me]

a 30yr old box turtle, you sure it's a her? has she laid eggs before?

The only time she ever did that was when I was about 9 years old. To my knowledge she never has since.

 

[spacegravity4me]

Can we see the XRay? It sounds strange to me that it's a year and a half since she ate the pebble and it's only recently causing trouble??!

I don't have a copy of it but I'm going to try and get it tomorrow

 

[spacegravity4me]

Give us a run down of everything you do in keeping her. All lights, heat, substrate, enclosure, temps, everything. Do you brumate her over winter? Any calcium or vitamins given?

She has a large enclosed habitat that I keep in my room. It has a large area on the right for water that is made out of a plastic container. It's deep enough for her to immerse most of herself in. In the middle I have a flat basking rock that I also use to feed her things like worms so she can easily see them. To the left of that there is, like one of those natural looking bridge things they can hide under. She likes to sleep there and dig in. The substrate is usually coconut fiber with a thin layer of forest floor cypress mulch on top. I did have to swap it out with reptisoil recently because I couldn't get my hands on the Coconut fiber. There is a heat lamp up top that uses an all in one bulb. The bulb is about a year old so it may need replacing. The lamp is left on most of the day to try and give her a natural cycle. I do turn it off if she gets tired early and goes to bed or hides from the heat. I have a mister that sprays distilled water ever 15 minutes of so. I clean her water every day or so and try to feed her whenever she is up. Used to be I knew when she was hungry because she'd stick her neck out and look at me. Honestly, most of her life she'd only eat lettuce. I had no idea. We'd tried to feed her fruit and things from time to time but she just didn't like it. Started feeding her canned box turtle food from Petco years ago and she loved that. Then worms. About 4 or 5 months ago she quit eating lettuce all together. Then she got tired of the canned stuff. Worms still made her visceral so I kept feeding her night crawlers. Now she won't touch anything. I really hate this.

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

How is your turtle now?

 

[jeff kushner]

I found that making a nice wet environment with temps from 70 on the cool side to 90F under the heat lamp set the scene.

Matilda got into a daily pattern. He would wake, look around for 20 minutes then go into his pool before looking for food on his food rock. Then he would crawl around till he went under his leaf pile for a nap.


I would guess they all have different patterns but I think it's good to allow the daily pattern to emerge.....