New Foster..... it's a box turtle. O_o

So.... This eastern box turtle was left in front of my work in a cardboard box with the word "HAT" written on it. She's injured/ill and we're not certain why/with what so she's going to a reptile vet tomorrow. She's alert, she's active, no mucus, no breathing problems, but her right rear leg is jacked up. No obvious breaks were seen on the x-rays that we did. The leg has a large amount of fluid build up, is painful, red, and she's barely able to move it at all. One of the vets is bringing a 20g tank tomorrow so we can set her up in a proper 'hospital' tank.

Poor peanut! She's so sweet! I love box turtles. I hope all goes well tomorrow! Let us know. I'm rooting for her.

So her name is Hattie?

i've never seen a box turtle with such red skin tones and such a uniformly colored shell. neat.

Poor thing! I wish turtles/tortoises were legal to keep as pets in TN. Alli is all about the snakes, but I really like turtles .

Wow- she really looks swollen! I hope she does okay.

Poor thing, she's so cute. Hope she makes a full recovery!

This is possibly not an eastern box turtle. It looks more like a three toed box turtle (only three toes on the rear feet?). Anyway, I'll bet the leg was either run over my a car or somehow dislocated. The important thing now is to keep her in high humidity with a uvb light, water bowl she can soak kept clean because they will defecate in the water in and light timer set on at least 12 hours daylight. Live food is best, crickets pill bugs, worms any kind of insects and most box turtles love papayas which are great for them, lots of vitamins and optimum calcium/phosphorus ratio (4) for best calcium absorption (aided by the UVB light which usually should be 12 inches or less away from turtle).

Good luck, here is a great informational page on EBTs: http://tsadjatko.hubpages.com/hub/Wh...rn-Box-Turtles

I did have someone on another forum confirm I got species and gender wrong. "She" is in fact a male 3-toed or 3-toed hybrid turtle.

Thankyou sheltowee for the information on keeping him as happy as possible!

You know... it's never reassuring when the vet looks at your 'pet' and then immediately pulls out his phone to take a photo.

Possible causes: Severe soft tissue trauma, insect bite, infection, small tumor blocking outflow for the leg, unknown.

So he's on antibiotics, we're trying to find something he wants to eat, he's getting twice daily warm compresses and silvadene. There's a very VERY good chance that he's going to slough most of his skin on that limb and it's pretty much guaranteed that he's going to need that limb amputated.

Amputated? Well then prepare to open your wallet big, if you haven't already. You might want to consider giving the turtle to a turtle rescue organization. They may have arrangements with vets for a discount. Here are a couple, Google it there may be one closer to you.

http://www.tortoise.org/cttc/adoption.html

http://clovisturtlerescue.tripod.com/