Scary Attacks

[jillmegan]

Three months ago my husband and I adopted my family’s California Desert Tortoise, “Hermie”. We love having him and he is adapting to his new home great, although last week he started having some trouble. We’ve taken him to the vet and he is baffled. The vet has taken x-rays and can’t find anything wrong, other than his impaction which we are successfully working on him passing.So here I am feeling very helpless so, I thought I would ask a fellow reptile lovers for some advise. Hermie has started this strange “attack” last Wed. He will out of nowhere start hissing at his left side, biting at his left arm, and aggressively walking backwards in circles. He will do this about twice a day, for anywhere from 2 min – 30 min. I can distract him while he does this and he will stop. Sometimes he goes right back into it other times he just walk away. When he is not doing this he is a normal, happy, curious tortoise. Please let me know if you’ve ever seen or heard of this.

I appreciate your advice. Thank you

 

[Torty Mom]

Welcome to TFO!

What is he impacted with? That is strange....I'm sure you guys have checked, but is there a cut or something on him in that spot? How often do you soak him?

 

[natty01]

ok this is just a first thought have you checked the skin, like where his neck and legs go into his shell, my first instict was too think that something is stuck in there and irritating/hurting him.

 

[Angi]

My first thought was the same as Natty's Maybe even a tick. I would think the vet would chech his shin , but you never know.

 

[jillmegan]

My 1st though was exactally like all of yours. I even thought he was stung by a bee. My husband and I checked his skin pretty closly and were not able to find anything out of the ordinary. When I took him to the vet he even looked at his skin under a magnifying glass. To answer a few of the other questions: I soak him any where from 3-7 days a week. I have been instructed to do it as much as possible to try to help him pass his impaction. He is impacted with gravel. My parents did the best they could (being that they were not given very good diet advise) and they mainly fed him Romain lettuce and apples. The vet says that Hermie had diet deficencies so he was eating gravel. We haver since improved his diet 100%, but now he is suffering with these attacks.

 

[ascott]

I would think from what you described, maybe he is having internal pain from the impaction....this was my first thought....an animal will gnaw their own foot off to, in their mind, stop the pain. So if he is randomly having fits and there is no apparent external thing, my thought would be internal.....

I would say to increase your soaking to 2 times every day....for 20-30 minutes each soak.

Have you spoken with your vet about giving him mineral oil to lube up the pooper? That will certainly aid in moving the rocks through

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