Turtle Injuries

Question
I have had a turtle for 4 years, and I recently found a smaller turtle last Fall. My bigger turtle and my smaller turtle were in the same cage, and they had no reaction towards each other. But, this morning, I found that the bigger turtle bit the smaller one's eye. We seperated the turtles by putting them in diffrent tanks. I don't know whether this will be a self-healing wound, or if I need to take the smaller turtle to a reptile vet?  

Answer
You should have never picked up and tried to keep the smaller one anyway. I'm a wildlife rescuer, and I don't care for that sort of thing. Of course almost anytime you have a smaller herp in a tank with a larger one, the larger one is going to dominate or inflict injuries on the smaller one. Even if the larger does not attack the small one, they shouldn't be in the same tank anyway because a small reptile will stress. Not only that, but there is no demonstration of quarantine here, and that's a good way to make your existing turtle sick.

"Self-healing"? A serious eye injury? You can't be serious.

The turtle needs to go to a reptile rescuer or wildlife rehabilitator, so that it can see a vet and then be rehabbed if possible, for eventual release where it belongs. I'm going to assume that you are a juvenile, and that taking it to a vet probably isn't going to happen, or you wouldn't be here..but yes, it needs to see a vet. It still needs to go to a rehabber/rescuer, because unless you have some money for continuing medical care and treatment of this wound, which is likely to be a long term rehabilitative issue...then you are just risking the life of the turtle through bacterial sepsis as the eye turns necrotic, gets infected, and that spreads into the blood stream and to the brain and kills it.