Help! My tortoise is so sick. He is not eating, not opening his eyes, is getting weaker every day and is starting to waste away. The vet has given him several antibiotic injections, vitamin and glucose injections. They x-rayed him as they thought he had a chest infection, but nothing showed up. He has been tube fed water as well. I have just syringe fed him some liquidized food and he seemed to take a little. Please if anyone can help/ give advice.

Hi

I take it your vet is not a specialist in tortoises. Viatmin injections are known to be totally ineffective. Why has your vet given antibiotics and what type? Did he do any swabs to determine what bacteria etc he needed to treat or was he just guessing. If it was my tortoise, I would be asking what he is treating him for and why. It could have been that your tortoise decided to wind himself down for hibernation and your vet may have compromised this if just guessing at teh problem.

The first thing you need to be looking at is his husbandry. How are you keeping him? Is he is a vivarium at all? What temperature gradient are you using ie hot end temps and cool end temps. Is he being bathed at all and what is he being fed? Sorry for all the questions, but we need to build a picture to see what is going wrong - I would not let the vet give him anything else upless they have given a reason. Antibiotics can make a tortoise sick if not using the correct ones, as can too much glucose if given too long - did he say why he gave glucose?

Sue

www.tortsmad.com