22 May 2004: Polk is a wild Three-toed Box turtle that was found hit by a car on a rural road in Polk County, Texas. As you can see, Polk is very shy. We believe he is a male due to a slightly concave area on his plastron.
His carapace was fractured into several large loose pieces and he has a hole into his body cavity at his left bridge. Upon arrival with the rehabber caring for him, a small internal organ was poking out of the bridge opening and muscle tissue was exposed in the area. One of the GCTTS vets carefully pushed the exposed internal organ back into place and repaired Polk's shell.
Most of the time shell repairs are not pretty to look at but if they do the job, that's all that matters. Polk will be returning to the vet at a later time to check on the condition of the shell fragments. Sometimes the shell pieces do not remain viable and have to be removed. This makes healing take longer but if left, they could cause infection.
Polk is on antibiotics and has been drinking water from a very small shallow lid. He can not be allowed a larger water container because the vet was unable to completely seal the lower patch. He has to be kept clean.
Because he is a wild turtle, he is very uncomfortable in captivity and only comes out when alone. His rehabber is trying various live foods to encourage him to eat. Polk will be in rehab a long time.
31 May 2004 Update: Now that Polk has had a little time to heal, he has been moved into a pen outside. Since he is wild, he is reluctant to eat in an indoor set up. He will be kept on antibiotics a little longer than normal since he had to be put outside before more healing occurred. He has eaten a feeder fish since being outside. He's probably eaten other creatures naturally appearing in the pen (like worms, slugs, snails and bugs) he's found on his own.
Please note that some images of injured turtles may be disturbing.
Long Term Care Cases - Index
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12 Jul 2004: Polk had a follow-up visit to the vet on June 29th. He had part of his carapace patch removed just enough to see if the shell pieces that had been completely loose were viable. Great news! They looked great (and no odor) so a new patch was put on to continue to keep the pieces from moving. He is no longer on antibiotics. We hope Polk's patches will be OK for at least several months or maybe until Spring 2005! It sure was nice to see that the loose carapace pieces were still viable. We are very pleased. Many times detached shell pieces do not remain viable and die, therefore requiring removal. We plan to let Polk hibernate this winter in his outdoor pen.
December 2004: Polk is dug into the ground in his outdoor pen now and in brumation. Back in October I got a picture of him out of his shell so you could see how pretty he is. He seems to be doing good. At some point later, Polk will be available for adoption.
4 Jun 2005: Polk came out of brumation just fine and is doing great! He is now living with one of the GCTTS members who does educational presentations. He has a backyard with some female box turtles and is enjoying his life with them. We are going to leave his carapace patch on for now until it comes off on its own which may be years.