Other Turtle Discussion :: Gross suggestion

[DanielRES1180]

Right now I was feeding the turts when I saw one of them pooping (sorry for the word). It appeared as if it was pooping a bunch of string, and I figured it must have taken bites out of the floating plants in the tank. Well, since this stuff was dangling behind the turtle, my mom suggested to pull on the bunch of string until it was over. I didn't because I think it might do something to the turtle.

The turt already pooped the string, but is it really safe to pull on something like this?

[flutterby]

The only thing i can compare it to is if a human pooped out something like hair or dental floss, or a dog/cat with Christmas tinsel would you want someone pulling on it? OUCH!

[steve]

How much of it is dangling out? Could you trim the part that is dangling out?

[megcornell]

At least in the case of cats and dogs you never ever want to pull on the string because you don't know how much is still wound in the intestines and you could end up pulling out the intestinal tract. I'm not too knowledgeable on turtle anatomy but I can't imagine their intestinal tract being much different so I would leave anything that hanging alone-- you could trim off what is hanging out so it doesn't get caught but don't pull it.

[industrial_girl_2000]

I hate to say it but it might be a type of parasitic worm. Turtle digestive tracts are nasty at best, especially since a lot of the things they eat in the wild are 1/2 rotted by the time they get to it.

I would keep an eye on it, and if it doesn't disappear in a day or two, I would take the turt to the vet.