Turtle Disease Symptoms

Video Transcript

"Hi. My name is Tim Cole. I'm with the Austin Reptile Service and I've been keeping reptiles and amphibians for over forty years. And we're going to talk about turtle diseases. One of the more common diseases is vitamin deficiencies which comes about because the animals have not been given the necessary vitamins or ultraviolet light that they require to process their food. One of the first signs of this is they'll get eyes that are gummed up or swollen. They can't open their eyes. And when they can't open their eyes, they don't feed. Calcium deficiencies are fairly common. Once again, if UV light or calcium powder is not supplemented with their food, their shell becomes soft, their legs can become brittle. Some turtles are susceptible to skin diseases, depending on the PH of the water. Alligator snappers are a good example. They come from water that has a low PH. If you put them in an aquarium with high PH and don't treat the water, they will eventually die to a skin disease. Several turtles require brackish water, or partial salt water. Diamondback terrapins is a good example of that. So, there's variety of diseases that come about from not getting the right husbandry. Misshaped shell is from a lack of calcium. And, quite often, turtles can get these conditions."