Spotted turtle hatchling has soft spots on plastron

Pastel Tortie

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This is one of the baby spotted turtles we bought in August. The other one seems to be doing fine, but this one has a couple places (symmetrical) where the plastron is soft. I'm wondering if it's shell rot or what... And how do I need to treat this tiny turtle?

I'm going to try attaching pictures to the next message...

Although I keep getting a "server error" when I try to attach a file via mobile device... So it may be a little while...
 
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Markw84

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This is one of the baby spotted turtles we bought in August. The other one seems to be doing fine, but this one has a couple places (symmetrical) where the plastron is soft. I'm wondering if it's shell rot or what... And how do I need to treat this tiny turtle?

I'm going to try attaching pictures to the next message...

Although I keep getting a "server error" when I try to attach a file via mobile device... So it may be a little while...
Baby spotted turtles have a big solid black blotch that pretty much takes up the entire center of the plastron. it can vary in size, but it should be pretty solid block with a well defined edge. My baby spotteds that hatched in late August all have quite hard plastrons now. Is the soft spot changing the uniform black color of the central plastron? If shell rot, you would see some whitish areas.
 

Markw84

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I wish we could upload pictures. I would show pictures of some of my spotted tanks for the babies and yearlings. Young spotted do like to bask and they need to. But if there are not a lot of good plant hides in the water where they can hang and feel secure, I find they do not like to bask as much. They spend a great deal of time hanging in plants near the surface. If they have that security, they will then spend quite a bit more time patrolling the bottom, searching for food, and then basking. My spotted habitats are more plant than open water.
 

Ghazan

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I wish we could upload pictures. I would show pictures of some of my spotted tanks for the babies and yearlings. Young spotted do like to bask and they need to. But if there are not a lot of good plant hides in the water where they can hang and feel secure, I find they do not like to bask as much. They spend a great deal of time hanging in plants near the surface. If they have that security, they will then spend quite a bit more time patrolling the bottom, searching for food, and then basking. My spotted habitats are more plant than open water.

would also love to see your hatchling / yearling habitats when uploads come back
 

Action

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I wish we could upload pictures. I would show pictures of some of my spotted tanks for the babies and yearlings. Young spotted do like to bask and they need to. But if there are not a lot of good plant hides in the water where they can hang and feel secure, I find they do not like to bask as much. They spend a great deal of time hanging in plants near the surface. If they have that security, they will then spend quite a bit more time patrolling the bottom, searching for food, and then basking. My spotted habitats are more plant than open water.

I would love to see some pics......Thanks
 

enchilada

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Well this may sound harsh , but certain percentage of hatchlings are born weak regardless of species ,Their shells are softer and growth rate are much slower than normal babies . Most of them cannot make it the first year . There’s nothing you can do .
I guess this is a survival strategy after millions of years evolution. The weak ones are meant to be the first pick by predators , so the healthy siblings get a better chance surviving .
 

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