snotty nose

[sunkisseddragons]

I have a 13 year old desert tortoise that seems to have a snotty nose regularly. When he was young it seemed like I was always giving him antibiotics for this. Now that he is older, he still gets a snotty nose. He is active and eats great. I wonder how much is normal tortoise snot and how much is respiratory?

 

[spring pace]

I have a 13 year old desert tortoise that seems to have a snotty nose regularly. When he was young it seemed like I was always giving him antibiotics for this. Now that he is older, he still gets a snotty nose. He is active and eats great. I wonder how much is normal tortoise snot and how much is respiratory?

humidity is the key factor to dryness which causes runny noses. what kind of substrate are you using? spring

 

[Maggie Cummings]

I would create more humidity. I agree with Spring, it sounds like he's too dry. Have you ever tested him to see if he carries that mycoplasma gene? That also manifests itself as a URTI...

 

[sunkisseddragons]

It's not the humidity-we live in TX. There's plenty of it here. He also lives in my backyard.

 

[spring pace]

It's not the humidity-we live in TX. There's plenty of it here. He also lives in my backyard.

i live in southern cali, it gets pretty humid here too, but i still make an extra effort in raising the bar in his sleeping area, galileo doesnt burrow so i have to create something like a burrow for him, i also made a mud puddle for him, its messy but worth it, im slowly turning my back yard into the "wild" to replicate a more natural habitat, even if a lot of my tools to do so comes from walmart

 

[sunkisseddragons]

It's not the humidity-we live in TX. There's plenty of it here. He also lives in my backyard.

i live in southern cali, it gets pretty humid here too, but i still make an extra effort in raising the bar in his sleeping area, galileo doesnt burrow so i have to create something like a burrow for him, i also made a mud puddle for him, its messy but worth it, im slowly turning my back yard into the "wild" to replicate a more natural habitat, even if a lot of my tools to do so comes from walmart

Hi Spring,
From what I always thought, desert torties need less humidity. They come from the desert-where it is dry. I also used to live in So. Cal. There was a tortoise house in Fountain Valley. They lost tortoises all the time because of the humidity and the ocean air. They were not adapted to it. I know for a fact it's not the lack of humidity. Maybe tortoises just generally have a snotty nose as a adults. I'll have to look into it further.

 

[Crazy1]

Elisa, Torts in general do not have snotty noses. But torts with long term URI do. It sounds as if yours has this. It is reaccuring and is not bad unless the snott gets to be thick white mucus that plugs the nose. Or it could be mycoplasma as Maggie commented. If a tort gets URI fequently it usually turns into a cronic problem. This is one reason we are not allowed to release them into the wild. You might want to get a culture done on this tort, and any others it has contact with.