vet trip today for our little fredrick!

[bdoyle]

Well taking my little guy to the vet this afternoon for a checkup

gonna have to see what the Doc says. Hopefully something easily resolvable.


*fingers are crossed*

I want a happy active fredrick asap!

 

[Tatooineboy]

Good luck! Keep us updated.

 

[Crazy1]

Eagerly awaiting update on Fredrick. Hope all goes well.

 

[Josh]

good luck! hope he's healthy as a tortoise ought to be!

 

[bdoyle]

Vet trip completes yesterday evening...

mixed feelings on the whole thing haha.. the secretarial staff were in awe over his cuteness. They now want one to keep in the clinic as a in-house pet..

but that re-affirms my suspicion that there are very few sulcata owners in my area. if any at all.


The Vet was very friendly, checked him over, weighed him.. inspected his nostrils...

No blockage is present in his nostrils, all dry etc.. no problem with his breathing.

his one eye was shut again ( as it has been since we got him periodicly ) , She reccomended some "natural tears" eye drops ( just another form of saline drops ) unmedicated eye drops basicly.

she put some in his eyes and he perked right up.

and didnt fall back asleep for the whole trip home.

A couple suggestions she made to me where:

Raise Basking temp from 97 - 98 degrees, up to 104 - 105. Since he does seem to use the outskirts of the basking area it may stimulate him to move around a bit more.

2nd suggestion was due to me having a fine screen lid on the enclosure that I Mount the UVB lights just inside under the screen rather then on top to be sure the full UVB light is reaching him.

I am using an IR (red) basking bulb.. Perhapse he's not being stimulated by a Daytime bright light scenerio.. so he's sleeping day and night cuz he doesnt get the full effects of a sun coming up...


does this all make sense?...

I will try and get the lights re-arranged tonight.

She aggreed that my enclosure humidity and substrate, hide position etc was good. As everyone here has confirmed already.


He's gettin fecal samples completed as well, will know in a day or two the results of them.

She was not at all concerned for him though as she said he was very strong and since he Eats after we manually stimulate him ( wake him up ) perhapse he's been spoiled by the previous owner to the point where he feels he doesnt need to make any effort cuz its always brought to him a couple times a day.

So She suggested we dont take him out to feed him all the time, but keep fresh food in his enclosure, monitor for a couple days and see if he will start doing it himself...

and of course get him off the darn veggie diet ( which im all too happy to do hehe )

 

[Itort]

Another suggestion is get a flourescent plant light for him and run it for 12 hours. I don't know if redlight registers as daylight to herps in general. This what we call tweeking the enviornment and as a tort ower you'll be doing this constantly.

 

[bdoyle]

Well, I was considering swapping out the Red basking lamp for standard Basking lamp (white light )

in hopes it would stimulate a daytime effect more.

since the vet was suggestion stimulation in lighting etc it'd only make sense that the white light = brighter then the red.

 

[Crazy1]

Blair It is my understanding that Reptiles do not see the Infared lights, that is why they are used at night for heat.
What veggie diet were you feeding him and what did the vet suggest?
I'm glad to hear he is going to be fine and that it may just be tweeking your lighting for him.

 

[bdoyle]

The Red light they dont see, exactly why it'd make sense that he's not sensing it as daylight since that i what i had for his daytime basking light

i have that red light and a ceramic heat emitter for ambient temps..

so other then the flourecent uvb bulbs he's not got any "bright" spot in his enclosure.

I'm hoping this clear(white) IR heat lamp will be bright for him now instead of that red color.
picked it up on my lunch break form work, will put it on when i get home today.

His previous keeper was feeding him Collard greens , lettuce etc from the Grocery store.. and supplimenting calcium w/ powder etc..

So now I have been giving him hibiscus and dandilion etc but he wont eat grass hay ( timothy hay )... so I'm going to start a migration diet over to hays and grasses.

I'm hoping my adjustments in lighting combined with the diet changes will give him a boost of liveliness
haha
just glad its not an infection really.

still waiting on results from worm/paracite tests too though so we'll see soon enough!

 

[Tatooineboy]

Good to hear everything went well Keep us updated on the fecal results.

 

[Crazy1]

I too am glad to hear no RI. It may take a little time but I am sure you will be able to move him over to a much better diet than the previous owners had him on.
It's all just such good news.

 

[bdoyle]

Ok more good news update today

Fecal results came back, all negative for paracites and worms of various type!

In addition to this, the eyedrops we're using seem to have made his eyes look so much more alert!

He's still a sleepy guy today, but I've now moved his 5.0 and his 10.0 uvb lights into his enclosure just under the screen so the screen is no longer blocking them, and added foil reflectors on top that i made from tinfoil

Its so much brighter looking.

I got a white IR heatlamp , 250 watt but its TOO hot compared to the 250 watt red one

so im going to go back to the hardware store tomorrow and swap it for a 175 watt , should do the trick nicely i think.


Very pleased.. OH! and we soaked him today again and he spent 5 minutes solid bathing his face down.. and wouldnt ya know it.. his nostrils look 200% better! must of been some dry skin hangin around in front of one of them.

I'm feeling more confident today now that i have the satisfaction of knowing nothing illness wise is wrong, and its just housing stuff to tweak.

I hope after i swap the red bulb for a white one tomorrow he'll start perkin up in the daytime more.

Thanks to everyone here for being so great with the help!

With all this stuff ive been through I am glad I can share my experience with the next new owner and help them along too!

Oh , and we went to an organic healthfood shop today, picked up a whole seedtray of Wheatgrass , swapped one of the trays in his enclosure out for the wheatgrass and he's been eating and climbing around in it... seems to love it!

 

[Jentortmom]

That is great news!!

 

[Crazy1]

Congratulations I am so glad Fredrick is doing well.

 

[bdoyle]

OMG!

I love you guys! this forum has possibly saved my tortoises Life

Thanks to Tortania for pointing out a post regarding the

Repti-GLO / Repti-sun compact florecent bulb issues!

I have a Repti-Glo 10.0 in my enclosure

and they are known to cause problems!

The description of the symptoms : Reluctance to open their eyes and Severe lethargic behavior.

That is my tortoises Behavior to a T!

I am glad i have found this out but so scared that 2 weeks under these lights has hurt him ..

replacing the light tomorrow.

I sure hope he's ok

I dont know what i would of done if i didnt find this stuff out

THANKS SO MUCH!

 

[drgnfly2265]

Good luck Fredrick

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1 Sulcata (Bowser)
www.myspace.com/bowsertortoise