My turtle chipped his shell

[turtlegirl]

Just noticed that one of my turtles - adult male slider crossbreed -has part of his shell missing. It's the bit mid centre at the front of his carapace right behind his head.

He used to have a sort of small protruding spur over his neck and now that is gone with the surrounding part and there is sort of semicircle1.5cm diameter missing at the front of his shell. The missing part has left a symetrical gap mid centre. I checked for sharp edges as I was worried he might injure his neck but the broken edge (if it is broken) is fairly smooth.

He doesn't seem to be in any pain or discomfort, eating and swimming normally and climbing about in the exercise pen as usual.
Is this normal as part of shedding or has he damaged his shell falling about in tank or exercise pen?
What treatment does he need,if any?

[wayne020668]

hi turtle girl, this is quite common in terrapins, these parts of the shell can and will often fall off when shell growth is happening as this part grows very little at a time. it is important to keep an eye on it though but as you said its not looking sore or red then i would try to keep the water clean and bacterial free by adding your methylene blue just to be sure, sometimes if this has been knocked off in the tank or by accident before its ready to fall off it can be open to this type of infection....

regards Wayne..

[turtlegirl]

Thanks for your quick reassuring reply
I knew that turtles shed scales/scutes (my babies do it all the time as they are growing fast) but I didn't know that turtles shed big chunks of shell from the edges. Will it grow back?

[wayne020668]

hi yes this should grow back in time... these animals can lose these sometimes when they dive for cover from the log or platform when basking in to the water when its not quite deep enough or they can simply fall off as part of the shedding... please just keep an eye on it but it should be fine...

regards Wayne.

[turtlegirl]

To avoid accidents and shell damage, how deep should the water be for adult males about 7in long?

[wayne020668]

hi, as deep as possible would be good but these things will happen from time to time regardless of the depth, we've had tanks at half full here at turtle rescue with no injury's and some totally full and one or two injury's, we do tend to use sand at the bottom of tanks now and this seems to have had a good effect on turtles damaging themselves but nothing is full proof...

regards, Wayne.