Full Recovery Impossible For Injured Musk Turtle

The following story about a musk turtle was submitted by wildlife rehabilitator Meg Francoeur of South Carolina.

The musk turtle (Sternotherus odoratus) is a small species of aquatic turtle. Its carapace measures less than 4 inches at maturity. I received a call in the middle of the night from someone who found one in the road while driving home.

When I picked up the turtle the next day, it was obvious he had either been struck by a car or injured by some predator. One eye was obviously damaged, and he had a head tilt and cant to his head. His jaw also appeared to be damaged.

He was not able to move in a straight line but only in reverse in circles. I brought him back here where I set up a small container of moss and water for him. He was immediately given an intramuscular injection of meloxicam for pain and dexamethasone injections to hopefully help with any brain swelling.

Meeting Three Challenges Head-On

My immediate issue was that he would flip himself upside down in his efforts to move. Animals tend to tip over if suffering head tilt and only using the limbs on one side. The problems are obvious with this — especially with turtles. I had a UV lamp set up for him, but I had to connect it to a thermostat so that he wouldn’t get cooked by the heat if it stayed on all the time and he flipped over while under it.

The other issue was that he’s an aquatic turtle, and aquatic turtles require water to eat. I found if I used a shallow dish with a defrosted algae turtle cube and plenty of water, I could stick his head in far enough to get his mouth in there to eat something. He still lost weight, so I added some of the EmerAid IC Piscivore to his mixture along with turtle sticks. This made a high protein/calorie mush that he could suck down. He steadily gained weight over the weeks doing this and hand-feeding some of the mush into him multiple times a day.

My next concern with him was getting him in enough water for his continued health without drowning him. His remaining eye, while being treated with ointment, was drying out. I wasn’t certain he even had vision in it due to the head injury. And then there was still the problem of him flipping on his back.

I headed up to my reptile vet to get an assessment and to show him my idea of how to keep this little turtle from turning over. I built him an outrigger! The original one was attempted out of a coat hanger wire, but it turned out to be too thick for the little guy to even touch his legs down. So on to round two!

The second “outrigger” attempt was made from a thin metal sign I had lying around. I made the outrigger with a small ski so that he could move without hanging up on anything. The vet loved it! I glued it to his plastron and it worked — for a while. He began flipping himself to the OTHER side. So, outrigger number two was added. This time glued to the carapace.

I then worked on the problem of water. I have since learned that musk turtles have the ability to breathe underwater through papilla on their tongues. Who knew? So, while I felt he wouldn’t drown easily, I still didn’t feel it was safe to place him in deep water. Without the ability to see well, a head injury that may compromise how he deals with spatial relations, and the added weight of the outriggers, I worried that he wouldn’t be able to come to the surface if he needed. Therefore, we compromised with water that covers his shell at one end, a slightly sloped enclosure and a layer of screen on the bottom to give him easy purchase to move around.

This setup worked well, as he appears to be able to now lift his nose enough to bring it out of the water. He continues to hold his head canted and to the side, but he is able to put his mouth into his food mixture when he’s placed in front of it and can move himself back when he’s had enough.

He returns to the vet in two weeks to reassess how he is and to decide whether there’s a quality of life issue for him. It’s fairly clear that he can never be returned to the wild, but I’m hopeful that he perhaps can be part of our educational program. It will all depend upon whether or not he can at least maintain his weight and health without having to go to intense lengths to do so.

Being able to have him in water more is helpful to him. We’ll just have to see how he progresses. Photos show his enclosure with some of his food placed near him to see if he would eat in the water as these turtles normally would.