Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:50:27 GMT

[quote user="Ian Mostyn"]

weight in grammes divided by the (length in cm) cubed. Not sure how to write that scientifically without a word processor.

Ian

[/quote]

Ah. Got it.

So the 240gm tortoise is underweight if it's over 11cm long.

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Rob Loxley — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 23:56:29 GMT

[quote user="Ian Mostyn"]Not sure how to write that scientifically without a word processor[/quote]

weight / length^3 ?

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Nicola Lawlor — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 22:20:13 GMT

It reminds me of a case a few years ago now when an elderly couple brought me in their anorexic, very large tortoise just out of hibernation, and requested I put it to sleep as it was clearly seriously ill and they did not want her to suffer. When I examined her she was clearly stone cold and I persuaded them that I really wanted her to be properly warm at the very least before we made any further decisions. Without suitable heatlamps at the clinic I stole a couple of portable heaters and put them in our isolation kennels (as the smallest room) and turned the place into a hot room. It was not terribly long before she was happily munching her way through various foods and was discharged to her thrilled owners who couldn't believe the miracle!

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Ian Mostyn — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 22:03:05 GMT

weight in grammes divided by the (length in cm) cubed. Not sure how to write that scientifically without a word processor.

Ian

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 21:39:55 GMT

[quote user="Ian Mostyn"] length (cm3)[/quote]

Sorry?

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Ian Mostyn — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:28:36 GMT

[quote user="Evelyn Barbour-Hill"]There's a handy graph in the BSAVA manual of reptiles.[/quote]

I prefer the calculation - weight(g) / length (cm3)

<0.17 - thin

0.19 - 0.21 normal

> 0.23 fat

If you try it on a Horsefields, you often get a value of 0.26. I had a Horsefields the other day that was severly emaciated and was 0.15 so it is still useful to a degree in other species.

Ian

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:30:56 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Bose"]So my question is... does anyone have any guidelines of measurements/weight ratios to tell if a tortoise is underweight?[/quote]

Jackson Ratio of carapace length to weight has its limitations I'm sure but it's not a bad start, for Mediterranean and Hermann's tortoises. Using that, 240g should not have been longer than about 12cm.

There's a handy graph in the BSAVA manual of reptiles.

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

HMC — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:43:55 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Bose"]I pithed her[/quote]

Sorry, that sounded heartless, especially in light of the initial posting.

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

HMC — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:37:30 GMT

[quote user="alex gough"]Not sure what happened in the end[/quote]

I pithed her.

I was going to post about this case. I need to get better at exotics but to me the tortoise looked like an ill tortoise that had died rather than a previously healthy tortoise (as the owner seemed to think). The plastron was not a uniform colour and the legs looked too thin. She was 5 years old and weighed 240g. I thought about measuring her but I didn't know what measurements to take.

So my question is... does anyone have any guidelines of measurements/weight ratios to tell if a tortoise is underweight?

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Ian Mostyn — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 09:11:01 GMT

[quote user="alex gough"]

A colleague had an interesting conundrum last night - a tortoise was brought in, suspected dead, but how do you tell?

[/quote]

I always leave them 24 hours before we send them for cremation or burial. I leave them somewhere reasonably warm so heat is not a factor and it is usually obvious well before 24 hours but I am paranoid. I also use a massive overdose of pentobarb but at the amount you need for most reptiles, that is still only a couple of ml's.

Ian

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Alex Gough — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 08:40:08 GMT

A colleague had an interesting conundrum last night - a tortoise was brought in, suspected dead, but how do you tell? We put the pulse ox on its feet, probe of blood pressure monitor on its neck angled into its chest, 10MHz ultrasound angled into its chest to look for a heart beat. Couldnt find anything, but does that mean we were confident enough it was dead to send it for cremation. Not sure what happened in the end,. but it did lead to the bizarre possibility of having to euthanase it to make sure!

Which reminds me of the joke:
Caller to 999: "Help, I've been out hunting with my friend and he was accidentally shot. I think he's dead. What do I do?"

999 responder: "Well first, make sure he is really dead."

Sound of gunshot.

Caller:"Ok, now what?"

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Gillian Mostyn — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:46:58 GMT

[quote user="Mark Rowland"]and the owner had emailed me to tell me it died on the way home (which I thought was odd since they normally die the next day)[/quote]

Sounds familiar...

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

Mark Rowland — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:00:07 GMT

Ha Ha it was sent by a client and its a Razorback musk turtle. I had seen it a few days previously, and the owner had emailed me to tell me it died on the way home (which I thought was odd since they normally die the next day). So she put it in the chiller over the weekend and posted it on Monday.

Re: Its a Praise Jesus miracle (or a novelty ice cube)

James Laidlaw — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:43:39 GMT

It looks a bit mutant! What kind of animal is it exactly?

Was it sent to you by a vet or a client? Or would you rather not say...