my terrapin looks like a muppet
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phooey… I wrote the email before I added the pictures and the email disappeared I recently adopted a 5 yr old terrapin that had been raised from a hatchling – the family was moving and couldn’t keep her I’m still on the low end of the learning curve with terrapins, but I don’t think her beak looks right. Please check album “Kord’s Lucky” and tell me if you think she should see a vet to have her beak clipped. Also, the nice guy who picked her up and brought her to me said he didn’t think she’d had a light or basking area – which makes sense since she has no idea what to do with the one she has now The food she came with was “Reptile Gammare” (Vitakraft) – just freeze dried shrimp and she won’t eat anything else… I’m concerned about her nutrition her scutes are very thick – big chunks came off the first few weeks she was here and the joints between them are still very deep
Check the inside of the mouth. Is there a build-up of what looks like mineral deposits on the inside of the lower beak on each side? Terrapins raised on mostly “soft” diets (and this includes Reptomin pellets) can develop a build-up on the “crushing plates” of the mouth that prevents the mouth from closing completely. A good vet can put the turtle under anesthesia and grind that down. Dr. Stahl in Vienna, VA, and Dr. Gold at Chadwell Animal Hospital in Abingdon, MD, and Dr. Boyd off of Pulaski Highway in Baltimore, MD, can all perform this surgery. This can happen with some of the larger map turtles as well, since they eat a lot of mollusks in the wild. It seems to be more of a problem the larger the turtle, so females especially are prone to it. I’ve never seen this problem with sliders, though, no matter how large the turtle or what the diet (and I’ve seen a lot of crappy diets). As for the scutes, they don’t look that bad to me. Try a little hydrogen peroxide to lift off any loose scutes. Poor it over the shell while you have the turtle over a sink or bathtub, wait a minute for the bubbling to do it’s work, then rinse the turtle. AVOID the eyes and mouth! Don’t use peroxide too often, as it can be harsh on tissues. She (looks big so I’m assuming a she?) has an extra scute or two there on the carapace, which is strictly cosmetic, and should not be a problem. I once had a terrapin with an extra vertebral scute and an extra plural scute on each side, and I get sliders with various extra scutes all of the time. As for the diet, have you tried cooked shrimp or smelt? It might be a matter of not feeding her for a few days and then offering a new food, or tricking her by offering pellets or other foods in tiny pieces along with a huge amount of the current food. It’s best to offer food in a seperate container, such as a plastic bin, if you go the “trickery” route, as it can get messy. I’ve gotten other finicky turtles to eat pellets by putting pellets into pieces of cooked shrimp or chicken. Katrina — In diamondbackterrapins@yahoogroups.com, “kord17007”
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