Sweetie - Red-eared Slider

Sweetie was probably a wild turtle found somewhere south of Houston by some children and put in their school's habitat pond. The person in charge of the pond was not informed of this for some time. When Sweetie was examined by the care taker, they noted severe shell rot on her plastron. The GCTTS was contacted to see if we could take her in. We received her on September 9th, 2006. Sweetie's infection was so bad one round of injectable antibiotics did not completely clear it. She was given a second round of another antibiotic. Being late in the season, it was determined that Sweetie would have to be wintered over inside to allow her to remain active and heal. As of November 2006 she is much better but still has a long way to go. She is eating very well about anything her rehabber feeds her.

As a note of interest, since bacterial shell rot is very contagious to other turtles, the school had to drain their pond and disinfect it and the filtration system with a 10% bleach solution. They are now monitoring the remaining turtles for any signs of infection.

Hopefully Sweetie's plastron will be healed by Spring 2007 so she can be released back into the wild. We will post another photo of her progress. Keep checking back.