Small hole on plastron of 3yr old Sulcata

[babytortie]

Hi! My sulcata is about 3 years old now and i just happened to notice today that he has a small hole on the plastron. I'm not sure what it is or how to treat it. Is this shell rot?? Any advice on what should be done? We live in San Diego and he's been roaming free in our backyard majority of time this summer and spending nights outdoors as well. He's made himself a nice little "home" under some succulent plants and it's just dry dirt/soil that he sleeps on. Any advice is appreciated.

 

[Markw84]

Looks like an old pucture mark that is healing with new keratin growth coming in nicely. You cold bathe and put on some antibacterial creame/ointment the next few days and watch it. Looks like nothing to worry about now, though.

By the way... Your tortoise is a female.

 

[babytortie]

@Markw84 Thanks for the reply! How can you tell that it's female?? My kids named "him" Spike when we first got it but maybe "her" name needs to be Spikette now. Lol

Would any kind of ointment work ...like neosporin? glad it isn't anything major.

 

[Markw84]

Neosporin would work well. Just keep your eye on this as you don't want it to get larger or red or white centered. But it does look like the keratin has already started to grow back in.

Although your tortoise is probably about 10", which is too small to tell most of the time, the anal scutes have already developed a very female shape with the inner edges forming a semi-circle and the outer edges curving inward. A male would never show that inward curve of the anal scutes, so your's is developing early. The gulars are also just "bud-like" and extremely small. A male will develop much larger gulars and as they reach 12" or so, normally will be noticeable in starting to project forward. Many don't start to show for sure until 15"-16", but some show early. Your's is quite small to have that defined an anal scute developing! An educated guess, so I "could" be wrong. But... (with tongue in cheek) I doubt it!!

Here's a 13" male already an "very obvious" male.



And here's a 10" already showing obvious female sings. I know I incubate her for female, and can now see the traits developing. Your tortoise has even more female looking anal scutes than this one does!