Yellow-bellied slider turtle

Question
I bought a yellow-bellied slider turtle in December. Recently is stopped walking and swimming around a lot and would just lay there on the rock. We were assuming she might be pregnant but today we found her floating in the tank not moving or anything. We took her out and when she opened her mouth we realized she has swallowed a little neon rock that you put at the bottom of fish tanks. Now even though the store we bought it from told us the rock came with the tank and were able to be in there, our turtle is now having trouble breathing and it is too small to get the rock out. What should we do?

Answer
I am not a vet, and this is a bit outside my expertise.

What I CAN tell you is that turtles tend to eat those colored pebbles a lot (they look more like food than rocks to turtles), and tend to suffer bowel blockages from it.

What you are describing sounds a lot like an intestinal blockage- the pebble in the throat is not automatically a problem if the turtle can breath past it.

Unfortunately, blockages are pretty much a vet call- there simply is not much you can do on your own.

For some good info on this, try the site http://www.redearslider.com (Red-ears are the yellow-bellies closest American cousins.)