Sulcata stopped eating, became sluggish

[Jeffsy_99]

My 2 sulcatas hulk and ruby suddenly stopped eating and bacame sluggish. Went the other day to the vet, gave me 2 meds. One is antibiotics and the other is to flush out urates. The vet said that my tortoise got over protein so they produced excessive uric acid or urates. X ray showed a lot of urates in their body. Now im force feeding them with wheat grass as they are still not eating on their own.

hopefully in 1 to 2 weeks of meds they will be healthy again. Btw, im soaking them once a day as well to keep them hydrated.

Any of you guys experienced this?

 

[wellington]

Giving a bump. What have you been feeding them and how often have you been soaking them before they got sick? Also, what are their temps and humidity? If you give us this info, we maybe able to tweak your husbandry so this won't happen again. Good luck hope all turns out well. Also, if you haven't, check out the threads at the bottom of this post. They are full of great info for raising healthy sulcatas

 

[Happy Tortoise]

Sorry about your torts. Hope they get better soon

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Jeff:

The way to flush out the excessive urates and urate stones is to get the tortoise hydrated. Its not from eating too much calcium...its from not drinking enough water. If this were my tortoise I would find a tub that he can't climb out of and soak him in water for at least an hour every day. Put in enough water to come up to the middle of the tortoise's sides.

Do your tortoises have access to drinking water at all times?

 

[Tom]

This doesn't sound like the norm to me. Can we get more info?

How is the tortoise set up?
Indoors, outdoors?
What were you feeding that was too high in protein?
What age and size tortoises are we talking about?

 

[Livingstone]

Sorry to do this, but after reading all 4 of your posts, and 3 threads I can honestly say that you need to do some research about caring for tortoises. Your diet, if you can call it that, makes me wonder why all of your tortoise's aren't sick.
TORTOISES NEED:
Sunlight at least 4 hours a-day.(you live in the philipines this shouldn't be a problem)
A nice cool place to hide that they can access without help.(temperature below 70 degress farenheit)
A proper diet. (Lettuce, dandelion, turnip greens, grape leaves, escarole, kale, mazuri)
Access to water all the time in a dish large enough that they can walk through it but shallow enough they dont drown.
Separate large enclosures. 5ft by 10ft each ideally.

Follow this advice, read the links in Tom's signature, and for the love of all that is good SLOW DOWN and stop buying animals you dont know anything about!!!!!

Cheers.

 

[cemmons12]

I have to agree. You need to do some reading and get them on a better diet in my opinion. Best of luck.

 

[Jeffsy_99]

This doesn't sound like the norm to me. Can we get more info?

How is the tortoise set up?
Indoors, outdoors?
What were you feeding that was too high in protein?
What age and size tortoises are we talking about?

My set up is in a 50 gal. Aquarium 90% grass and 10% soil.
I have uvb and heating bulb set up

They are set up indoors.

I was feeding them Water spinach from wiki ( in our country its called kangkong) most of the time.

Im not sure bout the age but i think they are atleast 1 year old.
One is 4.75" and the other is 5.25"

 

[Jeffsy_99]

Sorry to do this, but after reading all 4 of your posts, and 3 threads I can honestly say that you need to do some research about caring for tortoises. Your diet, if you can call it that, makes me wonder why all of your tortoise's aren't sick.
TORTOISES NEED:
Sunlight at least 4 hours a-day.(you live in the philipines this shouldn't be a problem)
A nice cool place to hide that they can access without help.(temperature below 70 degress farenheit)
A proper diet. (Lettuce, dandelion, turnip greens, grape leaves, escarole, kale, mazuri)
Access to water all the time in a dish large enough that they can walk through it but shallow enough they dont drown.
Separate large enclosures. 5ft by 10ft each ideally.

Follow this advice, read the links in Tom's signature, and for the love of all that is good SLOW DOWN and stop buying animals you dont know anything about!!!!!

Yeah. I have learned a lot from this forum since joining here.
So i have to learn a lot more from the veterans here before buying again.
Right now im focused in taking good care of my torts.

Thanks

Cheers.

 

[Jeffsy_99]

I have to agree. You need to do some reading and get them on a better diet in my opinion. Best of luck.

i have added aloe vera in my torts diet.
Hopefully i can get dandellions and opuntia as well.

Thanks for all your support.

---

Giving a bump. What have you been feeding them and how often have you been soaking them before they got sick? Also, what are their temps and humidity? If you give us this info, we maybe able to tweak your husbandry so this won't happen again. Good luck hope all turns out well. Also, if you haven't, check out the threads at the bottom of this post. They are full of great info for raising healthy sulcatas

I guess they werent taken good care by the previous owner. They have pyramiding as well. I have uvb and heating bulb in their aquarium. 90% grass and 10% soil.

Thanks

 

[Jeffsy_99]

Hi Jeff:

The way to flush out the excessive urates and urate stones is to get the tortoise hydrated. Its not from eating too much calcium...its from not drinking enough water. If this were my tortoise I would find a tub that he can't climb out of and soak him in water for at least an hour every day. Put in enough water to come up to the middle of the tortoise's sides.

Do your tortoises have access to drinking water at all times?

Yes they have. I guess the previous owner didnt take care of them well.
Isnt 1 hour too much for a tortoise? But if its okay i will follow that to make my babies well.

Thanks

 

[Jeffsy_99]

Hmm my babies moved around quite a bit today. Even ate little banana. Placed them in the sun for an hour before bad weather came back. The weather has been awful the whole week.

After that, when i placed them in their enclosure, theyre sluggish again.