LOST ONE TODAY...
Out of the thirty turtles who live with us, eight of them are babies, 2 to three years old.One of these babies grew normally for awhile and then stopped around the size of a quarter. The diet was exactly the same for all eight of them,same environment,etc.It just stopped growing, despite a voracious appetite. I suspect it had metabolic bone disease. I say "it" because it's difficult to sex turtles when they are so young,one tip off is the tail length,and judging on that, "it" was a he,called (unimaginatively) runt.
Runt was cool, kind of like wee man from jackass...always in there with his bigger brothers and sisters,holding his own. Our little turtle that could. Last summer he suffered an ant bite to his eye,which caused that alkaline swelling common to ant bites,in this case the swelling was almost as big as his head.I brought him inside and did what I could to help him out...he survived,sans eyelid and probably sight in that eye, yet he soldiered on.
As I've written,they are inside for the winter.Today was soak/feed day for them, and I found Runt dead.
I wasn't surprised...I knew this day would come. But as I watched his brothers and sisters soak and drink and clamor about,I wondered if they missed him like I did.