Urgent Care :: Intestinal prolapse

[CRUZTAKER]

My apologies for skipping the welcome forum and getting right to the point.
First of all, we are thankful that this site exists and was easy to find.

Fifteen minutes ago I had no idea what I had seen regarding our very new female Three Toed Box Turtle. Now we know, and are somewhat concerned from what we have read in veterinary reports. Particularly this one: http://www.chelonia.org/articles/Cloacal_prolapse.htm

She was a gift for our son. She was said by the vet as to be very young, healthy, and quite personable. We have had her for nearly two weeks. She was kept at his aunt's house prior to Christmas day in a 22 gallon tank with just the basics to start with. IE, reptile carpet, small water pan, and lights. Once brought home, we moved her into our 55 gallon terrarium with new carpet, a halved log home I constructed, better uv, and heat lighting, and a much larger kitty litter pan for water engagement.

After a few hours, she grew comfortable enough to roam the new pen. She found the rock climb to the pool and immediately went in for a bath. We found that during the day, she enjoyed sitting in the shallow 1/4" water. This new setup has a split level for shallow sitting, and a small pool area that is about 2" deep.

I had just filled the water, and was it bit warmer than the terrarium enviroment. It was about 95 degrees. I figured it would warm the large stones quickly, and dissipate to room temp quickly as well. Perhaps it was the warmer than normal water that caused what followed.

She entered the pool as she had done before, only on a smaller scale, and immediately did what she always had done and submerged her head for a bit, and then just sat and relaxed, head up tall. However this time, after maybe 10 minutes in the water (she is facing away from me), I see this large purple object protrude from under her tail. It was atleast the size of two small marbles. At first I thought it was a giant turd, but then it flexed in and out a bit. I FREAKED AT THIS POINT. I knew not what to do other than tap the glass, holler at her and prepare to pull her out of the water. By the time I had the lid and lights removed, I watched her suck that object right back inside her body.

She has been out of the water ever since, and has also since retreated into her log home. I checked her bum this evening and nothing appears out of the ordinary.

I apologize for the long story, but I hope it answers most of your questions.

No vet until Monday....any thoughts on this event. We're a bit puzzled, and frankly, scared as well.

Barry and Jessica

It looked just like this image, only purple in color.

[steve]

Sounds like you have a male and he was just fanning (his penis).

Here's a link to what you probably saw:
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology ... f_male.php

[RunninWideOpen]

If it was dark purple, I'd have to agree with Steve.

Is this vet you are seeing a herp vet, trained in the care of turtles and other reptiles? Often, regular vets apply what they know about other animals to turtles, but aren't correct. It's important to take your turtles to the proper kind of vet.

Can you post pictures of your turtle? Particularly some shots of the tail, belly, and face/arms. We could tell ya for sure what gender it is.

In case it is a prolapse, it's especially important that no damage be done to the intestine. Turtles will often inflict damage upon it themselves by kicking the rear legs.

[CRUZTAKER]

Good morning and thank you all for your replies.

Let me start by saying we are ok if the seller, and us are were wrong in determining gender. However, the object I saw, did NOT appear to be a penis. It would be good if it were, and we will watch him/her carefully with camera in hand if it happes again today.

Another bit of info before the pics. She was recently moved to a new home again as explained. She has not eaten since Christmas day. She drinks water though. She shows interest, but does not eat. She is still active, and comes out of her log as soon as the white lights come on, and goes straight for the pool.

You will notice in one pic the temp is low at 74. It dropped as a result of our removing the lights and top to take pics. We have only been able to keep this enclosure at 82 degrees during the day with all lights on, and it drops to 79 at night. We added a 24watt large under glass heating pad yesterday. The floor she sits on is cozy warm. We are still dealing with the low humidity issues, and are working on a solution.

Here are the pics as requested:

[SpotsMama]

Here's an interesting discussion on sexing box turtles:

http://www.ornatebirdgarden.com/html/males_females.html

The female shown in the photo is a three toed box like yours. The male is an ornate box. I'm not sure how much difference this would make in sexing a turtle, but the author didn't seem to think it matters.

Compared to the photos in the link, your turtle's tail looks like a male turtle tail. Then, note the discussion at the bottom of the page on male box turtle fanning. A male will climb into his water dish, extends his penis for a while (a large purple multi lobbed flower is how it is described) then retracts it and walks calmly away. Certainly sounds like your experience.

[eugenetimpog]

I hope he is just fanning. Do they have the same looking genitals from RES?
RES looks like this
http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12846&start=0

[megcornell]

The fact that your turtle can retract the protrusion makes me think it's a penis. Usually prolapses cannot retract.
Also, keep in mind that turtle penises don't look like mammalian ones, look at the picture in the above post to see what a fanning RES looks like.
There's no harm in seeing the vet if you're still concerned, it's always good to have a good herp vet in case an emergency does arise and this will be a good chance to meet them and have them double check your new turtle over.

[RunninWideOpen]

Very interesting......to be completely honest, your turtle confuses me. the tail looks female, the face and arms look male, the plastron and hind legs look female though as well. your turtle doesn't appear to have the "male hook" on the rear feet that it uses to latch onto the female. so I guess by majority, it does look female to me. but....intestinal prolapse aren't usually dark purple as far as I know......

If I may, I'd like to refer you to the place I go to for all of my box turtle questions. www.turtleforum.com . I hope that's okay and no one here takes offense to it, but they have a great box turtle section there with many very knowledgeable people. This site is mainly dedicated to RES, aquatic turtles, and although it's by far the best place I've found for that, not too many people here have boxies/tortoises. My name is RWO over there.

You mentioned you're having a humidity problem....... The reptile carpet you've got doesn't work for boxies. You need a natural substrate - top soil, peat moss, leafy matter, forest bedding, etc. I use a mixture of all that. In addition, I also have many live plants in their enclosure. I water the plants regularly, and also spray their enclosures at least once a day. This keeps the humidity up. It also allows your turtle to burrow and bury himself.

Adult box turtles aren't really suppose to be kept indoors, but I've also got to keep mine indoors since I moved. Here's my adult ornate's enclosure. It gives them nearly 20 sq ft.

[GNAF35]

I think you turtle is a male for sure, and I'm almost positve he was fanning.

[RunninWideOpen]

do you have any box turtle experience GNAF?

[RunninWideOpen]

Here are some pics of my ornates, not sure how much help they will be. I am quite confident in their sexing. The boxie people over at turtle forum, my herp vet, the rescue place that I got them, all said the same thing. Plus.....they've been mating.

Sid, my male




Diega, my female

[CRUZTAKER]

do you have any box turtle experience GNAF?

Nice setup you have RWO. We may steal some ideas.

The carpet is gone tomorrow. We shall take someone's advice and use a proper bedding throughout. Actually, we will use a suitable substrait OVER the carpet since there is an under glass heater in use for the winter months. We will also look into ditching the aquarium in the spring for something more appropriate as advised here.

We had an order in with a breeder in California for another female...but that has gone on hold until the sexing is 100% accurate.

We managed to get the temp up to 84 and maintain, and the humidity at 43%. Perhaps she will eat tomorrow.

Thanks everyone!

[RunninWideOpen]

glad to hear it cruz! you'll have one happy turtle!

be aware that it's not possible to tell the sex of the box turtle until it's at least a year old. and 2-3" long. so if you're ordering a hatchling, the breeder won't be able to tell the sex. unfortunately...some of them don't tell you that. they just guess and hope that it turns out to be right.

also, be advised that multiple males tend to not get along with each other, and a male with only a single female tend to not get along well. with box turtles, the general rule is to have at least 2 females per male. i've noticed that my male does harass my female a lot at times, and I do seperate them when necessary. females generally get along well with eachother as long as they have enough space.

if you still want to get another turt, I would suggest contacting a local reptile or turtle rescue. that's where I got both of my ornates, for free. and they needed to be adopted. it took a couple hours of searching the internet to find the rescue place, but it was worth it.

[CRUZTAKER]

She / He did the showing off of the "object" again this morning. This time in the bath tub while the enclosure was being serviced. I missed it, only my 6-year old saw it and by the time I got back with the Nikon is was gone again.

I think you folks are right. Must be a boy.

However, it still won't eat. It's like day five now. Only drinks. Still active, but with the enclosure changes, it hides (burrows) all day.

We are still struggling to get the heat above 82, even with the lamps clamped low into the enclosure. I think I will add a second under glass heater to the side she now burrows into. Humity is now maintained at 50% =- 5 points.

As per your suggestions, we have added a combination coconut husk and douglas fir forest bark over the repti-carpet. We also added a container of reptile safe peat moss, and keep it moist. The water area has been down sized.

[RunninWideOpen]

Sounds like you've made some great improvements! Remember to have a temperature gradiant, a cool and a warm end. (86F-70F). This allows your turtle to properly regulate its body temperature, as it is cold blooded.

Only being 82F for the warm end isn't a huge deal for the winter. Your turtle won't develop any health problems by it. The humidity is the bigger problem you need to work on.

It looks like you've got the peat moss in a small container? Or is that lettuce? It's hard to see. The peat moss gets set on top of and mixed in with the substrate. The substrate itself should be kept damp (but not soaked) as well, but keep a section of it a little dryer to give your turtle the option. 3 toeds generally like more moisture, and humidity in the 80% range.

Covering the top of the tank really helps get the humidity up.

What are you trying to feed that he's not eating? Adult boxies are still quite the meat eaters. They eat lots o bugs. All 4 of mine generally go after the bugs right away when I give them to them, then come back periodically throughout the day to munch on the fruits and veggies. 5 days is not a very long time for a box turtle to not eat. they can go a couple weeks and be fine. It could be the stress of a new environment that's distracting him from the food (especially being in a glass enclosure).