new turtle

[Maggie Cummings]

Hey everybody...Look at what UPS brought me today...Her name is Ginger (came with name) and she is a 9 year old Eastern Box turtle. She came from MATTS. She was badly abused and is very afraid of people and when she gets stressed out she gets cherry eye. She needs to be kept alone because if she can see other turtles she gets cherry eye. Her eyes looked really good when I took her out of the box but some hours later I was taking these pictures of her and she started to get her eye problem. I put her on the kitchen floor for a good contrast medium and she was absolutely frozen in place I took 7 pictures and she didn't move a muscle, poor thing. But she ate a couple of blueberries and some trout chow when she thought I wasn't looking and seems to have settled in just fine...

Cherry eye starting

 

[Millerlite]

nice rescue, shes a really light eastern, i would of guessed 3toed.

 

[Meg90]

Aww she's such a pretty girl. The tough cases get the closest to your heart. (And manage to do it the quickest).

I used to have a pair of boxies when I was a kid. I didn't appreciate them like I should have back then. Someday I will adopt, and do a better job.

She has a good home with you Maggie for sure.....

 

[Candy]

It's good to see she found the right person to give her a good secure loving home. Good luck with her Maggie.

 

[Chadam]

What is cherry eye and what does it come from?

 

[galvinkaos]

Maggie, she found a great place to get taken care of.

Dawna

 

[Isa]

Congratulations Maggie
She is beautiful! I am glad that she crossed your path, now she is going to live a happy life and she will know what it feels like to be loved

 

[Stazz]

Yaaay congrats Maggs She looks so cute! Ginger is quite a cutie name. I'm sure she will settle in more than nicely with a pro like you

 

[sendie]

Box turtles are the cutest things - I loved my sister's, but I'm finding it hard to get past the BUGS! They eat BUGS!! LOL! I still find myself looking at their pictures and loving stories about them though

 

[bettinge]

Maggie, Nice tort. What is its size, hard to get a reference from the photo. Seems so small, not what I would expect for a 9 YR old.
What is cherry eye?

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Look at her eye and you can see the start of a red swelling in it. That red area keeps swelling until it basically takes over the whole eye and they can't see. This picture is just the start of the swelling. If it gets bad enough the vet has to cut it out. You all might remember Tony, my small Sulcata who had cherry eye in both eyes and couldn't see at all...so with this little turtle she gets stressed out just seeing people or other turtles and this cherry grows in her eye. I put some terramycin in it and put her back in her habitat and this morning her eyes look normal...
She is a normal size and has a good weight on her. I'll take another picture in a bit with something by her for size reference...

 

[Crazy1]

Maggie congrats on your new addition she is lovely. Though the pic you took showing her cherry eye she just looked so scared. Poor thing. But she is in good hands now.

 

[Yvonne G]

I'm not an authority on Eastern box turtles, but I do have a few. The adults look like this:

http://images.google.com/images?cli...box+turtles&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=

And the youngsters look like Ginger. I have a year old baby who's carapace looks like Ginger's. I know that they told you that she is 9 years old, and maybe it has something to do with being kept in the house with no sun, but a 9 year old should look like the images above.

I know you'll have her "eating out of your hand" in not time. She's a beauty!

Yvonne

 

[bettinge]

Can cherry eye happen in all stressed tortoises, or is it a disease and stress only irritates it?

 

[Yvonne G]

Can cherry eye happen in all stressed tortoises, or is it a disease and stress only irritates it?

This was written for dogs, but its a good explanation:

http://www.bobmckee.com/Client Info/Eye/CherryEye.html

Personally, I never knew that it occurred in turtles and tortoises until Maggie's Tony developed it. In Tony's case it was due to unknowingly being put on a substrate that contained some pine. Then I saw it in a gulf coast box turtle. In this turtle's case it only occurs when the turtle is stressed out. So after having read about the dogs above, I'm assuming the connective tissue is weakened and the stress causes it to bulge.

To answer your previous question, a box turtle normally gets to be about 6" front to back. Its just a smallish land turtle. At nine years of age, Ginger is full grown and will fit nicely on the palm of a hand.

Yvonne

 

[galvinkaos]

On vacation the kids kept flipping themselves over ( the table was too small for how active they became in desert weather). Doris had cherry eye when I righted her and it cleared up when she or I wiped the dirt from her eyes.

Dawna

 

[Maggie Cummings]

you took your torts on a run?

 

[galvinkaos]

We were gone 10 days. I couldn't leave them home alone. We take the dogs too. We have a house in Bullhead City (across the river from Laughlin). I offered it for the TFO 2nd Annual meeting.

Dawna

 

[Maggie Cummings]

How do you get all those animals on a motorcycle??? Just teasin, I read about your 2nd house