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As turtles grow just like all reptiles, they do shed
their skin and their shell but they never shed their shell
as one big piece, so they never lose the shell
and grow a new one.
Their shell grows with them and the scutes,
which is the outside part of a shell or the carapace
as we call it, they will slowly lift off.
So, as the turtle gets bigger they just stay small
and slowly just peel off.
So, if you have a turtle out of the water for quite a while
and he dries out you may notice flaking on the shell.
You maybe noticing the scutes lifting off and that’s just
the turtle growing and just peeling like our skin.
And it’s best never to peel them off because you can damage
the scute underneath.
So, if you notice it just let the turtle do his thing.
And a very common thing that we see with our turtles
is that when they’re swimming around and you may see
like a spider webbing or slime coming off their legs
and it normally happens in the first few months of getting
him or her and our alarm bells ring, we get a bit worried
thinking our turtle’s got a fungus growing on it.
And what it is turtles do shed their skin as well.
So, it will slowly just slough off their legs but it can look
a little bit like a fungus or a bit of a slime coming off them,
so there’s no need to panic, it’s just your turtle growing.
And normally when you get the turtle for the first time,
probably within a month you’re going to feed it a lot more
than it was previously getting at its existing house
and it will just start to grow and it will start to shed.
You’ll notice the shell starts getting marks on top as well
and it’s just his shell growing, so it’s nothing to be
alarmed about.
Some of the main things that also we do need to worry about
is if our shell does get soft then we do need to make sure
that he’s getting the right amount of calcium in his food.
So, we want to give him whole bodied items.
So, when we feed him things like prawns and fish
we don’t shell the prawn, we leave the shells on the prawn,
we just remove the head so it doesn’t spike them.
And you should have happy days.
If we feed them things like crickets we dust the crickets
with the calcium powder just so that the turtles can get
extra calcium in their diet and that will help keep
their shells nice and firm.
Another common thing that can happen to your turtle is
they can get respiratory problems which will need
vet interaction.
And sometimes you might notice your turtle just floating
listlessly around the top of the tank and that can because
especially in the Winter months if your heater breaks,
you’re not checking your water temperature regularly,
your basking lamps have stopped working and you haven’t
got around to changing them that can lead to your animal
getting some respiratory problem.
And especially if the water’s really cold and we keep
feeding them they can get upset stomachs and the food
can rot in their belly.
So, it’s important to keep an eye on as a daily check,
water temperature and check your lights just to ensure
that the basics are working fine for our animal.
I always recommend that if you’re not sure about
what’s happening with your turtle, get a vet to check it.
.