Hello and thank you for having me. A little backstory for how I came to be a tort caretaker. My wife has a wildlife rescue and rehab nonprofit to which I am the primary volunteer . We only rehab and release native wildlife and the other day she gets a call of a gopher tortoise in distress. Well, not a gopher tortoise but this tort was in distress. What was picked up was a female Leopard tortoise.
Normally we have nothing to do with domestic or exotic animals, but we do rehab a lot of box turts. I mean a lot. I have become the defacto turt caregiver, ( because I love them so much ) and she deals with a lot of mammals and birds of prey. Well the young lady we got was in distress because someone had wrapped duct tape around her entire shell directly across the center. Tape removed now, but still some adhesive from tape left on her shell that I will be getting off in sessions so as to not overly stress her.
She is approximately 13.5” , 15lbs, and as far as the research I have done and the state she was in, was not raised with love. She has extreme pyramiding on the top three scutes. The duct tape deformed the center scute to grow rear wards and there is maybe 3/8” between center scute and the one behind it. She does not have any other injuries and as far as we can tell, has no internal or respiratory issues. We have given her a name ( Savanna ) and are letting he decompress from her ordeal. I know this is a long winded intro and I thank you for taking the time to read it. Here mainly for quality information from seasoned caretakers. Thanks again for having me.
Normally we have nothing to do with domestic or exotic animals, but we do rehab a lot of box turts. I mean a lot. I have become the defacto turt caregiver, ( because I love them so much ) and she deals with a lot of mammals and birds of prey. Well the young lady we got was in distress because someone had wrapped duct tape around her entire shell directly across the center. Tape removed now, but still some adhesive from tape left on her shell that I will be getting off in sessions so as to not overly stress her.
She is approximately 13.5” , 15lbs, and as far as the research I have done and the state she was in, was not raised with love. She has extreme pyramiding on the top three scutes. The duct tape deformed the center scute to grow rear wards and there is maybe 3/8” between center scute and the one behind it. She does not have any other injuries and as far as we can tell, has no internal or respiratory issues. We have given her a name ( Savanna ) and are letting he decompress from her ordeal. I know this is a long winded intro and I thank you for taking the time to read it. Here mainly for quality information from seasoned caretakers. Thanks again for having me.
