Pink spots/line on legs/plastron

Darkfox

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Our tortoise started showing a couple of pink-ish tinted spots recently, some on a couple of scales on his back legs and now also one line on his plastron. It is not a very strong pink, but it is notable, especially after he's been washed. The legs spots have been there for several weeks already, the stomach line appeared only now. He's otherwise been acting absolutely fine (eating, running around etc). He's already in his 20s so quite a sturdy veteran, but we don't recall anything like that happening to him before.

IMG_20220606_152853.jpg
IMG_20220606_152916.jpg
IMG_20220606_152836.jpg
(Somehow at least on my screen the pictures don't show the colouring very well, but there is always one notable pink-ish scale, and on the plastron it is along the long horizontal line.)

Any ideas what this might be and whether it is a reason to worry/get him checked?
 

Grace-Sophia

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This almost looks like he rubbed against somthing and made a sore spot on himself. Is there any areas in his enclosure that this could have happened? May we have pictures of his setup, as well as himself please? I will tag a few experts so that we can get you some more help. This doesn’t look too serious now, but pink/red on tortoise shells can sometimes have a worse outcome than it seems.

@Yvonne G
@Tom
@GBtortoises
@zovick
 

Tom

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Our tortoise started showing a couple of pink-ish tinted spots recently, some on a couple of scales on his back legs and now also one line on his plastron. It is not a very strong pink, but it is notable, especially after he's been washed. The legs spots have been there for several weeks already, the stomach line appeared only now. He's otherwise been acting absolutely fine (eating, running around etc). He's already in his 20s so quite a sturdy veteran, but we don't recall anything like that happening to him before.

View attachment 345638
View attachment 345639
View attachment 345640
(Somehow at least on my screen the pictures don't show the colouring very well, but there is always one notable pink-ish scale, and on the plastron it is along the long horizontal line.)

Any ideas what this might be and whether it is a reason to worry/get him checked?
What substrate are you using? Can we see the enclosure?
 

Darkfox

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This almost looks like he rubbed against somthing and made a sore spot on himself. Is there any areas in his enclosure that this could have happened? May we have pictures of his setup, as well as himself please? I will tag a few experts so that we can get you some more help. This doesn’t look too serious now, but pink/red on tortoise shells can sometimes have a worse outcome than it seems.

@Yvonne G
@Tom
@GBtortoises
@zovick
Thanks for the replies, both of you. We actually let him roam free indoors - he never liked his terrarium and at one point we simply decided to get rid of it altogether. (Currently we are, in fact, in the process of building him an enclosure where we are planning to put some topsoil&sand mixture, to provide him with a bit of private retreat where he can burrow, but that's irrelevant at the moment.)

Anyway: we were wondering if it was just him having rubbed against something, but we were wondering as it has never happened before (and our floors are overall smooth and "trap-free"). However it is true that only recently when it became warm enough we let him go to our new balcony, and we were wondering if there was something that may have caused this there, there may be one or two hard places. Similarly a couple of weeks ago (around the time this appeared) we briefly had a disassembled shelf lying about indoors for a short while and he may have crawled over it at some point. The question is, if these are sores, would they last this long? (Two weeks? How fast should a hermann tortoise heal?)

And if they are sores, should we somehow treat them? Should he be somehow kept safe until he heals completely, should he be e.g. allowed to go outdoors? (We also started taking him outdoors recently when it finally became warm enough, but *that* I am sure cannot be the cause for the spots, because 1. the spots appeared earlier and 2. we only took him out twice for a really short time and it's just normal grass there - nothing he could rub himself against.)
 

Sarah2020

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On the shell it looks like new growth on the legs could a rat attack? Tortoise need heat, light,, soaks, water and good fresh leaf diet with cacium. Please check your set up and see if anything can be improved.


There may be a medicated cream you could apply in a controlled way to rear legs as they use front for eating so could injest But others may advise.
Re your new enclosure avoid soil as they eat it when it gets on the food and it can compact in tge stomach. I use Orchid bark course which you can search on Internet. In UK we have a provider Swell reptiles so you can view it and maybe they will ship to Finland?
 

Grace-Sophia

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Thanks for the replies, both of you. We actually let him roam free indoors - he never liked his terrarium and at one point we simply decided to get rid of it altogether. (Currently we are, in fact, in the process of building him an enclosure where we are planning to put some topsoil&sand mixture, to provide him with a bit of private retreat where he can burrow, but that's irrelevant at the moment.)

Anyway: we were wondering if it was just him having rubbed against something, but we were wondering as it has never happened before (and our floors are overall smooth and "trap-free"). However it is true that only recently when it became warm enough we let him go to our new balcony, and we were wondering if there was something that may have caused this there, there may be one or two hard places. Similarly a couple of weeks ago (around the time this appeared) we briefly had a disassembled shelf lying about indoors for a short while and he may have crawled over it at some point. The question is, if these are sores, would they last this long? (Two weeks? How fast should a hermann tortoise heal?)

And if they are sores, should we somehow treat them? Should he be somehow kept safe until he heals completely, should he be e.g. allowed to go outdoors? (We also started taking him outdoors recently when it finally became warm enough, but *that* I am sure cannot be the cause for the spots, because 1. the spots appeared earlier and 2. we only took him out twice for a really short time and it's just normal grass there - nothing he could rub himself against.)
there are alot of dangers with letting your tort free roam unsupervised.
1. They don’t get the heating and lighting they need to keep healthy
2. Dangers, as you now see with injuries

The BEST thing you could do for your tort (and for him to heal and prevent this from happening again) is to get the right size encloure built for him, with the proper lighting and heating. My recommendation is to get this done ASAP, and then get him a place he can be outside SAFLEY on warm days. In the meantime, you can setup a large storage tub with the right things as posted in the thread above until you can get the right size and appropriate setup.
 

TammyJ

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Your tortoise should not be free roaming in the house. Lots of things can happen to him, including possible poisoning/skin reaction from some cleaning products you may be using. I am with those here who have advised you to allow him to live in his own, correctly controlled space, apart from being allowed outside too when it is warm.
 

Darkfox

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Thanks for your replies. He has been living indoors for essentially 20 years without any problems. Like I said, we do not, as a rule, have anything dangerous on the floor or anywhere within his reach. Obviously I would not encourage anyone to let a tortoise roam free without making sure that it is a 100% safe environment.
If the spots are injuries from something, then I am leaning towards the idea that it was indeed caused either by something in the new balcony, or by something that we neglected to take care of and left it lying around and he got to it.

Does anyone, for that matter, have an idea how long should it take for a tortoise to heal from some sort of scratches or injuries like that, if that's indeed what they are?
 

zolasmum

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Thanks for your replies. He has been living indoors for essentially 20 years without any problems. Like I said, we do not, as a rule, have anything dangerous on the floor or anywhere within his reach. Obviously I would not encourage anyone to let a tortoise roam free without making sure that it is a 100% safe environment.
If the spots are injuries from something, then I am leaning towards the idea that it was indeed caused either by something in the new balcony, or by something that we neglected to take care of and left it lying around and he got to it.

Does anyone, for that matter, have an idea how long should it take for a tortoise to heal from some sort of scratches or injuries like that, if that's indeed what they are?
Tortoises heal much more slowly than humans or other mammals because of their different kind of metabolism
Angie- don't panic if it takes a while, but just keep checking on the injuries and make sure no more appear.
 

Darkfox

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Tortoises heal much more slowly than humans or other mammals because of their different kind of metabolism
Angie- don't panic if it takes a while, but just keep checking on the injuries and make sure no more appear.
Thanks! Yes, we actually talked to our local vet in the end and she confirmed that these are seemingly just scratches, and suggested us an ointment that should be good for the tortoise. So hopefully this heals and that once we have removed all potentially hazardous new items from the place, he will be okay again.
 
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