jharrris
Active Member
Hey guys, my tortoise Shelly is having recurring conjunctivitis. He scratches his eyes every once in a while but that's the only symptom. Otherwise acts normal. But after multiple vet visits and medicated eye drops until they run out, he continues to do it. I only see it very rarely. This has continued to happen on different types of substrate. He's on Eco earth that is sprayed daily, water is mixed in once a week, 4x8 plywood enclosure with pond liner and pond shield for humidity. Fed greens, usually spring mix, with soaked zoomed grassland tortoise pellets, dried weeds from kapiolo farms testudo mix, and calcium powder twice a week. 65W incandescent flood bulb for basking and a dome sort of fixture for ambient lighting with a regular light bulb, which is staying off for now to conserve power.
Vet said to use Reptivite once a week to rule out vitamin A deficiency and go from there, which I haven't been doing very long so I will continue to do so and monitor but I've noticed the eye scratching multiple times since then. Otherwise, it will cost over $1,500 for testing to figure out the cause. Could be a chronic genetic thing or due to an infection, according to the vet.
Sometimes his eye puffs out a little when he scratches then it goes back to normal. Only scratches for a second, nothing unusual or noteworthy about the way the eyes look. Otherwise acts normal and vet says he's in excellent health otherwise.
I'm also dealing with the hurricane. No power, we borrowed a small generator but today it was only able to give 3 hours of light before dying. He's getting lots of sunlight too, today my dad gave him 3 hours of basking light and 3 hours of outside time.
I love Shelly, but my dad adopted him on a whim when we had more money when I was a teen and then wasn't careful with said money and didn't properly research tortoise care, got wrong info from the breeder. Now we're worse off financially and I've been trying to better Shelly's conditions but I feel like I'm failing. And with this and everything else going on, if I can't figure it out then I will have to rehome Shelly to someone who is more prepared and financially better off.
Things are much worse for so many people and animals so I'm not just trying to make a sob story out of it. I'm saying this because if it comes to that, would anyone be interested in Shelly? Loves pets, sweet, docile, never tried to bite, only about 5 years old and generally in excellent health. He has this eye issue, he has small skin abrasions on the sides of his head (which I made another post about that I can link, I think it's from the eye scratching but not sure) and I had concerns about the scales around his feet but the vet just said to soak him frequently. Also mentioned in my post about the skin abrasions. Otherwise the vet was impressed by the health of this tortoise.
I live in Greenville, SC. If I do end up having to rehome him I'd really like for it to be someone close by that I can keep in contact with and still help take care of Shelly, I really love him. Sorry for the long messy post.
Vet said to use Reptivite once a week to rule out vitamin A deficiency and go from there, which I haven't been doing very long so I will continue to do so and monitor but I've noticed the eye scratching multiple times since then. Otherwise, it will cost over $1,500 for testing to figure out the cause. Could be a chronic genetic thing or due to an infection, according to the vet.
Sometimes his eye puffs out a little when he scratches then it goes back to normal. Only scratches for a second, nothing unusual or noteworthy about the way the eyes look. Otherwise acts normal and vet says he's in excellent health otherwise.
I'm also dealing with the hurricane. No power, we borrowed a small generator but today it was only able to give 3 hours of light before dying. He's getting lots of sunlight too, today my dad gave him 3 hours of basking light and 3 hours of outside time.
I love Shelly, but my dad adopted him on a whim when we had more money when I was a teen and then wasn't careful with said money and didn't properly research tortoise care, got wrong info from the breeder. Now we're worse off financially and I've been trying to better Shelly's conditions but I feel like I'm failing. And with this and everything else going on, if I can't figure it out then I will have to rehome Shelly to someone who is more prepared and financially better off.
Things are much worse for so many people and animals so I'm not just trying to make a sob story out of it. I'm saying this because if it comes to that, would anyone be interested in Shelly? Loves pets, sweet, docile, never tried to bite, only about 5 years old and generally in excellent health. He has this eye issue, he has small skin abrasions on the sides of his head (which I made another post about that I can link, I think it's from the eye scratching but not sure) and I had concerns about the scales around his feet but the vet just said to soak him frequently. Also mentioned in my post about the skin abrasions. Otherwise the vet was impressed by the health of this tortoise.
I live in Greenville, SC. If I do end up having to rehome him I'd really like for it to be someone close by that I can keep in contact with and still help take care of Shelly, I really love him. Sorry for the long messy post.
