Hi! Introduce yourselves here. :: New member with battered rescue

[littlecakes]

Hi everyone
Glad to find this forum.
My husband and I have done many kinds of animal rescue but this is our first turtle rescue. A friend called us today saying that his friend bought a large turtle in Chinatown that an old woman was keeping/selling in a tiny box with netting over him with a bloody nose. She had seen him on her lunch break and said she couldn't walk by and not take him but wasn't able to actually house or foster him. Our friend said he didn't know anyone else to call but us. (I now know I am in trouble if we are the first line of defense in our friends' animal problems....)
After talking to the woman who bought the turtle directly, and trying in vain to convince her to foster him, we went to her workplace to pick him up. The image of him with a bloody nose, sitting in a box was too much.

He is much bigger than we expected. He/(She) is 10 inches long. How old do you think that makes him?
He has marks all over his shell like someone tried to use something pointy to hammer his shell open. Awful.
We're taking him to the vet tomorrow to get him a check up.
In the meantime I will be reading the archives/postings to learn more about RES turtles.
I have a feeling he is going to end up ours since there aren't too many adoptive homes for them especially this large.
We've named him/her Ichigo for now. It means strawberry in Japanese.
Keep your fingers crossed for us and I'm sure I will have questions of mine own soon enough. Will post pictures soon.
Thanks!
Hanna

[Turtle_Gem]

Welcome, eep im sorry to hear that the poor turtle got hurt, hope everything is ok, im new as well but i know some stuff. Good luck on the new rescue.

~Amy+Skitty

[Swaypippin]

You are doing a very nice thing!
There is sadly no way to tell age by the size of the turtle.
Poor guy/gal. (probably a gal due to the size.)
Good luck! And keep is posted!
I'm looking forward to seeing pics.

[imderanged]

I love that name!!! I almost named my parrot Ichigo, but since he absolutely refused to eat strawberrys it didn't seem to fit him. I can't really imagine calling him anything but Ziggy now. Something in my home will probaby end up named Ichigo some day though!

[Topbell]

Hope she recovers - rescuing a turtle is very rewarding for you both.

[littlecakes]

So we took her to the vet and she has pneumonia, poor thing. We were given Naxcel that we will inject every day. The shell damage is only superficial but she also had pink skin so has some internal infection. The vet said if she has gotten to be the size she is in whatever bad conditions she must have been living in before she came to us yesterday, her body must be strong so she is hopeful that we got her in time to turn it all around.

My husband and I are still tweaking her habitat (ie. bathtub) but she has a proper basking area and has a better level of water to swim and float in although not nearly the optimal depth. I have two thermometers, one for the water and one for tweaking the height of the heat lamp. The only thing I need to add is a UVB lamp which I will get tomorrow.

Here she is with her "night light" on.

[Tortugasmom]

Oh that story made me cry!
I can't understand how some people could be so cruel and neglecting towards living things!

Kudos to you for rescuing her!

[littlecakes]

We made her a blog so some friends of ours who helped us with money for her could get updates.
http://ichigotheturtle.blogspot.com/

[mzkitty23]

Oh, this is just heart wrenching! I also rescued a poorly cared for turtle, but yours was in much worse (medical) shape! I'm SO glad you ended up with him! Good luck!