Turtle septicaemia.

[bensnacks]

Symptoms;red spots in soft skin,swollen joints, lethargy, off of food.

Does septicaemia sound like a reasonable diagnosis.???
[addsig]

[Kohm]

Probably, ben.

Has this fellow sustained any injury in the infected area previously? What species is it?
[addsig]

[JuliusSqueezer]

as Kohm asked, What kind of turtle? Was there an injury or infection that may have become septic? What is the history of this turtle?

look for crusty eye boogers and signs of resp infection. A common ailment of captive turtles is avitaminosis ( vit A defeciency) from lack of diet variety and of course vitamin A.

UVB/Calcium is also extremely important and a lack of will cause bone and shell problems...the swollen joints could be caused from this. UVB/Natural sunlight converts stored cholesterol into Vitamin D...crucial for the bones and for clearing the cholesterol from the vascular system. This is true also for humans but the body cannot process High levels of cholesterol in this way so gravy will still eventually kill us all. [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

_________________
My Web Page

	Ultra Violet Radiation B Ultra Violet Radiation B

[bensnacks]

Chelodina longicollis, and Elseya latisternum, were
the two guys in question ,now recently deceased.
They belonged to my sister ,over 1000km's away, I've never laid
eyes on them, unfortunately. No injuries were noticed and they passed within two
weeks of each other .They were bought as babies and kept for 18mnths.
Scepticemia was suggested by a vet pre-mortem,(but like you guys I don't have
that much faith in vet's).
Is it possible it was introduced to the tank via water plants or
food????

Temp. and U.V. were taken care of ,shells were healthy and all, there were no symptoms
until a week before death.
[addsig]

[JuliusSqueezer]

sooo common snake necked turtle and saw shelled snapping turtle ( I looked them up lol) I dunno Ben...I guess about any infection could turn septic really fast. It is a little odd that both died so suddenly unless it was a husbandry issue...nasty water comes to mind since they are both aquatic species. I guess the thought of an injury going septic is out the window with it killing them both off. Certainly if a plant was introduced that may have been toxic to them...or just poor water filtration...or maybe some nasty little parasite got them...I am assuming they were probably housed together. It realy could have been any number of things.
[addsig]

[bensnacks]

Sorry led you up the gareden path there, it
was a Murray short-necked, not a snapping turtle.

Yeah, housed together,... .alright then ,Thanks Jules.
[addsig]