A school has set up a fundraiser to help pay for the veterinary treatment of their beloved tortoise.
Shelly the tortoise has been admitted to the vets after she had not laid her unfertilised eggs.
Read St. John’s Primary School has set up a fundraiser to help pay for the costs of the treatment needed to get Shelly back to her old self.
Headteacher Fran Agar said they acquired Shelly from a parent three years ago and she has helped the pupils like a ‘therapy tortoise’.
Fran said: “She is like a therapy tortoise, we take her around to classes, the children bath her, they come and feed her in the morning If they are reluctant to go to school.
“She goes out to play with them in the playground when it’s nice and sunny.
“The children love her, she just wanders around the classrooms.”
The staff noticed that Shelly had been off her food for about a week and that she had other symptoms including a sneezing sound and she was collapsing.
They took her to the vets where they did an x-ray confirming she was a girl by the presence of eight eggs.
The vet told the school staff to take her home and let her have a quiet place with sand and compost to let her bury the eggs and give her a few days.
She laid two but after nearly five days, she did not lay the others so the vet asked for Shelly to be brought back in on Monday.
A further x-ray showed that the eggs had not moved and the vets said she could need a c-section, which would cost £1,000.
The vet has kept her in since and she has laid a further five eggs but one egg is still stuck, with further concerns that the surgery may need to go ahead to have it removed.
To help pay towards some of the care, the school has set up a GoFundMe page which has raised more than £690 (at the time of writing).
Fran added: “The vets have been fantastic in sending our children little video clips.
“The parents have been absolutely amazing in donating money towards her care.
“I want to say a huge thank you to the parents and local community who have donated money.
“We had the first donation within a couple of minutes, we are nearly at the goal.
“She is a well-loved pet, everyone loves Shelly, we just want her better and we just want her back home.”
You can donate to the school fundraiser here.
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