Possible Rectal Prolapse in Redfoot

[Mavrik]

Hi all -

I am currently talking to someone who is trying to rehome their RF... She adopted him from a pet store because he supposedly has a prolapse, but now she cannot afford the vet bills for that so she is trying to rehome him to someone who can help him.

My question is... Does anyone have an idea, ballpark or otherwise, on how much this might cost me? I want to help, I truly do, but I need to know that I'm not going to bankrupt myself over this one animal when I have other animals (tortoises and otherwise) that also need taken care of.

Also, since I have never dealt with this before, is the care for a prolapse very difficult?


Thanks in advance for any help and advice that is given...

 

[Yvonne G]

This is probably a lost cause now, as it's been such a long time. Any prolapse that is allowed to stay out for this length of time has dried up and is now in the process of dying. So if it's the tortoise's penis it will need to be amputated. Call around to different vets and ask if they work with tortoises, and if so, how much will it cost to amputate a penis. You might also ask how much they will charge to push the prolapse back inside and sew it in, just in case the tissue isn't dead. My guess would be a couple hundred bucks.

But another important consideration is why did this happen? There has to be an underlying reason, like stones or constipation he's trying to push out, or parasites, or, in the case of a female, being egg bound. If you don't clear up the reason it happened, you can't make it stay inside.


http://www.chelonia.org/articles/cloacal_prolapse.htm

 

[Mavrik]

She says she has been keeping it clean and moist, and doing sugar water baths. I have photos but I don't want to scare anybody from offering help and advice.

 

[wellington]

Post your photos, that's how we all learn. the squeamish needs to get over it and learn too. Good luck, and Yvonne is one of the best ones here to help you

 

[Mavrik]

I have also spoken to someone from a Facebook group who is quite knowledgeable, he says that it does not look so much like prolapse but more like the tortoise version of hemorrhoids, possibly from a parasite infection. Any thoughts?

 

[wellington]

@Yvonne G will be able to tell you. Just be careful who you listen too. There are a lot of knowledgable people out there, but the sad thing is, they are stuck in the past with the old, outdated, wrong information.

 

[Yvonne G]

I have a young yellowfooted tortoise with this same problem. In my tortoise's case it was egg bound and the constant straining, plus the pressure on the interior nerves, etc. caused the cloaca to swell like that. My YF tortoise was too small to pass the eggs easily. We tried every trick in the book to get them to pass - oxytocin/calcium, sugar water, mineral oil, heat - everything we could think of. The X-ray showed 5 eggs. In the end I opted for allowing nature to take its course. Three or four months later she scraped away leaf litter and was able to deposit those 5 eggs plus 7 more. It took a little while for the swelling to go down, but it eventually did.

I guess what I'm saying is your friend needs to find out why this has happened. It is not a penis prolapse and it really doesn't look like intestines or any other organ. I'm with the Facebook guy. It looks like a swollen cloaca.

If my tortoise hadn't been able to pass those eggs, she might have died. If you're not ready to accept that and can't afford to do anything about it, I would not buy the tortoise. But it needs to have some sort of intervention. It can't go on like that.

 

[Mavrik]

Well, at any rate, I have not talked to her at all today, which may mean nothing is happening with the adoption. Thanks though to both @wellington and @Yvonne G for chatting with me about the situation!

 

[leopard777]

how will a vet treat this ? the eggs is stuck ? looks painful ...

 

[Yvonne G]

If you can't get the eggs to come out by themselves, then surgery is required.

 

[stojanovski92113]

Ohh poor baby