Symptoms and Prevention and Treatment Methods of White Plastron Disease in Soft-shelled Turtles

White plastron disease is a difficult and complicated turtle disease that has appeared since 1996. It is currently the most harmful turtle disease, with the highest mortality rate and the greatest treatment difficulty. If not treated in time, it can cause all of them to die. At present, there is considerable controversy over the pathogen of this disease. The reported pathogens include: 1) Bacteria: the pathogens are Aeromonas hydrophila, Proteus, and Edwardsiella tarda. 2) Virus: spherical virus with a diameter of 80nm. 3) Cross-infection: death occurs after viral infection is followed by secondary bacterial infection. The author believes that, based on the analysis of the particularly obvious effect of adding vitamins during treatment, it may be due to a lack of vitamins in the nutritional feed of soft-shelled turtles, which lowers their immunity. For example, a deficiency of Vc and Ve can cause anemia and hypochromia, lowering the immunity of soft-shelled turtles, opening the door to viral infection, followed by secondary bacterial infection. Pathogenic microorganisms act together to damage the internal organs of soft-shelled turtles, causing internal bleeding, leading to severe anemia and death by suffocation. This year, at a farm in Guangdong Province, among the adult soft-shelled turtles raised this year, except for 1 pond that was fed fresh fish for a long time, all the other 8 soft-shelled turtle ponds fed compound feed experienced outbreaks of white plastron disease, fully proving that unqualified feed is an important cause of the disease. The typical symptoms of white plastron disease are an intact body surface, a paper-white plastron, pale and bloodless muscles, intestines, and stomach, blood clots in the intestines, and an enlarged liver that is earth-yellow.

Treatment measures: splash 2-3ppm chlorine dioxide over the whole pond once every 4 days; at the same time, each 100 kg of soft-shelled turtles should be orally given 10 g of moroxydine, 6 g of norfloxacin, or 6 g of chloramphenicol, or 20 million units of kanamycin per day, and mix in 5 g of vitamin C, 8 g of vitamin E, and 3300 mg of vitamin K3 and feed it with bait for 15-20 consecutive days. After medication, deaths drop rapidly within 1 week, deaths can stop within 10 days, and symptoms disappear within 15-20 days. Preventive measures: in winter, dry the pond and disinfect it; when feeding fish or animal internal organs, the compound feed should be required to have comprehensive nutrition.