tortoisemamaof3
New Member
so our newest addition to the family is a 2 year old russian tortoise. We have 2 other russian tortoises we recently bought who are much older(all kept in separate enclosures). Anyway, my husband picked her up last night from the previous owners home, and when we brought her home we noticed that she was dragging both her back legs. if you picked her up, she still moves her legs, just not that much and when you put her back on the ground, she goes back to dragging and looks like she problems getting around. The previous owners we bought her from had her in a glass tank(which i know isn't proper) and they had a heat lamp but we never saw the uvb light for it(so I'm going to assume they never had a uvb light for her either). Also, they only had sand at the bottom of her "enclosure"(which was also a small space not big enough) and I'm pretty sure they never gave her proper water soakings or any extra vitamins. Im pretty sure they only fed her romaine lettuce which i know she won't get all her nutrients from just that. They had old crusty romaine lettuce all mixed in with the sand at the bottom of the enclosure, they never took it out after they fed her. Also my husband emailed the previous owner and asked him about why she's dragging her legs and all he said was she was perfect before we picked her up and he has no idea what were talking about, and then he told us its probably because the cold from outside(which my husband picked her up and put her in the car(she was also wrapped in a blanket) so i know thats not why.
We did make an appointment with the vet, but we have to wait 4 days for the appointment.
I just wanted to know if anyone on here would know why she was dragging her back legs, and is it possible to reverse the problem?
I was thinking it was because the previous owners never gave her proper care, and I'm thankful we bought her so we can start giving her a proper diet and proper care altogether, and i really hope whatever that is wrong is reversible so she doesn't suffer or isn't in pain.
We did make an appointment with the vet, but we have to wait 4 days for the appointment.
I just wanted to know if anyone on here would know why she was dragging her back legs, and is it possible to reverse the problem?
I was thinking it was because the previous owners never gave her proper care, and I'm thankful we bought her so we can start giving her a proper diet and proper care altogether, and i really hope whatever that is wrong is reversible so she doesn't suffer or isn't in pain.