Galapagos Tortoise Health Scare and Recovery Tips

What's going on everybody? If you are a patreon member then you know that Phantom was acting a little strange in our last patreon video. So, I'm going to show you what I found out and how I'm remedying it. Okay, everybody. So, Phantom was displaying some curious signs the other day and it got me real nervous as you can imagine. He had foam around his mouth, um was lethargic, wasn't doing much. And so, I got a little concerned. He ate a little banana.

Um he moved around. Uh I had Kate and the kids check on him while I was gone. Uh he was moving around a little bit, but just not the normal Phantom uh you know, excitement. So, what I did was when I got back we took him and we gave him a soak, okay? Because my suspicions seem to have been correct. I suspected he may have been dehydrated. Uh sometimes when a tortoise is dehydrated they're going to foam at the mouth. Um there was no discharge in his nares, so he could have gotten overheated, could have been a little dehydrated. Here he is right now. Much more alert, much better. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to place him in this large vision tub and we're going to go fill it up with some water.

We're going to soak him just like I did yesterday. And after I soaked him, he drank, he perked up, he was very energetic. And he also released a lot of fluid that was stored in his bladder, which was another indication for me. If you see tortoises after they drink they expel some fluid. We know that tortoises can retain fluid and live off that fluid for quite some time. So, what he was doing was he was retaining fluid. Uh the fluid came out, quite a bit of it. It was tea colored and was also pretty viscous. Um that usually means that he was slightly dehydrated. So, um what I'm going to do uh is soak him right now. We've already spoke to Dr. Mike. Dr. Mike uh is in agreement with my assessment. I sent him video of the tea colored uh um

you know, the tea colored urine. Um and so, he said, "Hey, keep soaking him. Let's keep an eye on him." So, that's what we're going to do. We're going to soak him. We're going to keep an eye on him uh and continue to see if his uh symptoms improve, which I think they will. I'm feeling very good about this. Let me put you guys down real quick so I can lift this massive tortoise. He's 117 lb. Let's see. Let's get him up. Oh, he's still a young guy. Oh boy, but he's still big. Uh Come on, buddy. Get in there. Oh, there you go.

Good boy. Right in. So, let's go ahead and fill up this tub. We got some water here. This is what it takes to take care of your animals. And things are never going to be perfect. Sometimes uh tortoises are going to get ill or sick or you know, just maybe not find their water bowl. I definitely want to build a larger water feature in here for these guys so they have something things to do. We got to build some kind of water feature. But anyhow, we're going to go ahead and give him a soak. I like to soak him for about 30 minutes. And this will ensure that he's got some water in him. I'm going to continue to do this for the week just to kind of get his electrolytes back up, things like that.

You can already see much more energetic and much more like his old self. So, why would a tortoise not drink? Well, it's possible he knocked the water bowl over while drinking. Um we haven't been getting a lot of rain this winter. It was a drought situation, so uh usually these guys are going to drink from puddles. There's Socrates. We've got water, of course, in their thing, but if he didn't make his way around to here, he probably didn't see the water. So, uh it happens um from time to time, especially in the dry season of Florida. What I need to do and what I normally have done is I

would buy watermelon. And I would use the watermelon as a way to get water into the animals. They love the watermelon, but you can see very energetic today. We're going to go ahead and keep filling this up and I'll leave him in here for a while. And then what we'll do is we're going to pull him out get him back in the enclosure and we're going to offer food. He ate a bunch of food yesterday. I soaked the pellets so that the pellets would have um a lot of moisture in them. So, it's just one of those things as far as husbandry that every once in a while if you're feeding the pellets dry

uh during a dry season, that could be a problem if he's not getting enough of the cactus and succulents, things like that. We're going to offer him that today. That has a lot of moisture in it. So, what he has been eating is a lot of the dried leaves. They're grazing, they're browsing, a lot of the weeds that pop up in here. Um so, you just have to supplement a little bit more. And like I said, from time to time things happen. Uh we have a large collection of tortoises here. Uh in the for the most part these guys are kept in a very naturalistic way. The giant tortoises have a lot of space to roam around and eat. This comes on a timer.

Theirs doesn't. So, I'm going to rig up another uh poly tube and we're going to go ahead and shh feed it over to them. I think I can do right from here. Yeah, I can actually plug into this. We'll have to dig a little trench, but I'll get the water uh just kind of moved in to that section as well. So, I've got a lot to do as you can imagine. Uh but hey, this is what I'm all about. Keeping these animals happy and healthy and teaching you how to do the same thing for your animals. Whether they be a sulcata or a Galapagos tortoise or a red foot, it doesn't matter. All tortoises are going to need water. All

tortoises uh are going to sometimes get sick and it's up to us to read those signals and signs and make sure we're doing our absolute best to keep these animals happy and healthy. So, let's go ahead and soak him. I'll get back with you after we finish the soak. Aha. Uh you know what they say, work smarter not harder. I originally was going to make a trench all the way to there, but then I realized, "Hey, that water bowl can move." And these guys certainly wander around in this area. So, we've got the water on a timer that will flow. And what I like about this, same reason we have the water down there now instead of this giant uh this giant pool that was originally built in our very first episode of Camp Cannon.

Uh we built this originally as a watering hole for the giant tortoises. However, it was never able to get totally clean and I didn't like it. So, in the rainy season they have a depression over there, they can wallow in mud and then this is their clean water source that comes on every night. Right now, obviously I turned it on so we can kind of fill this one up, but it comes on every night and flushes the water out and then I can easily clean this easier than this one. So, we made it a plateau, that's the feeding station. That's the watering station. This will be their watering station. Uh what I like also is the water moves.

Um that agitation helps the tortoises uh and attracts the tortoises to the water. Shout out to Kubota for my mobile toolbox. I love this thing. I just put all my gear in it and I drive to where I want. Hey now, look at this guy. He's ready to get the heck out of there. So, he's feeling much better and look, he even made poopies. That's another good sign. Hi there, good looking. You ready to go back in? Let's do it, man. Let's get this guy back in and therefore we can just kind of monitor him. We'll offer him some food here in a little while. And uh yeah, really excited. Let's go. I was worried. I always worry about my animals. 117 lb, no problem. I won't be able to do this for long though.

Uh okay, he's in. Woo. Let's go ahead and dump this while we're at it. We don't want mosquitoes to kind of start reproducing in that. But those Vision Tubs come in handy. Thank you, Vision. Our friend Mark Beavers, Custom Cages, Vision, they are awesome. Giving me tools to help the critters. He is back, baby. Let's see if he'll eat now that he's in his habitat. I offered him some of this, he wasn't interested. There's a lot going on, he's probably annoyed, but let's see. He knows where he is. Let's go ahead. He's got some tortoise chow on his face. Let's see.

You interested in this, buddy? Huh, Phantom? I'll tell you what, from that other video, he just looked so lethargic and he needed a drink. Oh, baby. Oh, my baby, come on. That's a good guy. There you go. Woo! How awesome is that, huh? Phantom was just a little dehydrated. You have to know what the signs are and you have to know what the remedy was. Another sign I noticed is his tail his tongue was pale. And now it's becoming more colorful again. So, it happens even in captivity. You just got to keep your eye on your animals.

Uh like I said, I've had this happen before and uh just know the signs, know what you're looking for and then you can kind of make sure the animals are okay and they rebound quick as long as you get on it fast, okay? If we left him go for any longer, what will happen is his kidneys would start to uh go into renal failure. Um that could be a problem and this is why when the sailors actually went to the Galapagos Islands and loaded up the ship's holds with giant tortoises, they would just let those animals sit there with no food, no water and the ones that had enough moisture in their body uh survived a very, very long time, but there were probably a bunch that succumbed to dehydration fairly quickly.

It depends. Did they get a drink? Did they uh when they were caught uh sometimes if you catch a tortoise, even desert tortoises, if you're out west and you see a desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii, never pick them up in the wild. It scares them, they void their bladders and all that valuable moisture is lost. Same thing with a lot of tortoises and even if a tortoise is from an area with frequent rainfall, uh you still have to be careful because these guys are slow moving. They are designed to take life easy and they may not find water for a couple of weeks. So, it's very important to know the signs of dehydration, to know when a turtle or tortoise needs your help. I'm very, very happy.

Uh one of the things I preach about on this channel all the time when we're walking around the camp is husbandry. Spend time with your animals. Get to know the animals. I know these animals in a very personal way. I know their behaviors and I've had him since December and ever since we got him, he's friendly, he moves. He's gregarious, he comes over to me. So, when I came in the other day doing my walk around, he didn't come over to me. That's odd. That's odd behavior. You've got to pay attention to these animals. So, we were able to remedy the situation quickly.

I'm so happy. Can you imagine with the winter I've had, can you imagine if we had a sick Galapagos tortoise also? It's just the worst, the worst. So, today is a feeding day. Sophia is going to be feeding the animals. We'll let him settle in. We'll watch him for the rest of the day and um I'm sure things are going to continue to improve. I'd say he's made an incredible turnaround already. So, I'm not really worried anymore about this guy. To be honest, I said a little prayer, too. I ain't lying. I wanted this guy okay. So, we said a little prayer, we got a little uh some good response and uh thank you. And I hope you guys enjoy these videos.

I hope you guys enjoy the animals as much as I do and learning. We're basically here to learn how to care for these animals and make sure their health is 100%. That's the mission here at the camp and uh when you're dealing with endangered animals and zoo animals that have met their retirement age and have been retired here to the camp, it is my absolute mission to make sure these guys are safe, sound for the rest of their lives here at the camp. So, that's what I've dedicated my life to. There's Socrates coming to say hello to Phantom again. I'm so glad we have a male and female Galapagos tortoise. That is cool.

Let's hear it for Phantom. All right. Very cool people. Thanks so much for watching. Don't forget, go to patreon.com so you can be up on all the going ons here at the camp. We showed the video of Phantom how he didn't look so good. You guys will be privy to just footage you won't see anywhere else and plus a live chat with me every single Thursday at 4:00 p.m. no matter where I am, unless I'm in another country or uh at a family outing, but usually I'm there. I'm there every 4:00 p.m. Eastern. All right, people. That's it. Phantom looks good. Glad you guys could join me. We got a lot done today. As always, the work never stops at the camp. I'm now going to go on and start working

somewhere else. I'll see you guys later. All right, Phantom. Good job, kid.