26/04/2023
A big part of caring for our residents is making sure they’re all healthy, which means regular health checks to monitor any changes and catch anything unusual that we've missed with our daily visual checks, such as lumps or weight loss that might be hiding under lots of fur/feathers! Some of the animals you don’t hear us talk about as often, who don’t have fur or feathers, are our rescued terrapins, so we thought we’d share some photos of one of their recent health checks!
Every animal at the sanctuary has their own record, and for this health check, each terrapin was measured and photographed so that this information could be added to their records to help with their identification in the future – they may all look the same to you, but they do all have slight differences in size, shape, and colour, which helps us tell them apart. Much like our sheep residents might look very similar to you, to us they are all very different because we know them so well, and the same goes for Amy who cares for our turtle residents!
As well as measurements, they were also weighed, and their body condition was checked over to make sure they were all a good weight. This was also a good time to check their shell condition, skin, eyes, mouth (the dangerous part!), feet and tails.
Before popping them back they were all painted with a small ID mark using a non-toxic paint. Each terrapin has a unique marker in a different place using a special code that we use here at the sanctuary. Each terrapin has a reference number corresponding to their record, and these dots form that number using this code along their “scutes” - the plates on their shell. As these are shed away over time, we re-paint them as needed. It doesn’t bother them, it’s entirely pain-free and very helpful for us! This is also one of the conditions of our licence to be able to care for these species here at the sanctuary, as Red-Eared Terrapins and Yellow-Bellied Sliders are classed as Invasive Alien Species here in the UK,