# Wheezing? Sulcata Tortoise



## Bryna (Apr 21, 2014)

I'm having an extremely worrying morning, really hoping someone can help me out with some advice! We have a sulcata tortoise, Morla. We don't know her age (she just showed up in our back yard one day last June, and we were never able to find her family). I weighed her this morning, and she weighs 17lbs, and is about 14" long. I think she may have lost a little weight since I last weighed her, which doesn't completely shock me, as she hasn't been very interested in coming out of her 'cave' all winter long. However, the weather is starting to get nice. Anyway, as it turns out, Saturday afternoon, while I was at work, my sister took her out and put her in her run to graze. Unfortunately, she forgot about her and didn't remember until about 9:30 last night. She brought her in and put her under a basking light with fresh water and timothy pellets, but Morla just took off like a rocket for her den. When I went up to make breakfast this morning, I saw her peeking out, and brought her a piece of lettuce as a special treat. But, when I got close to her, I noticed she was kind of wheezing -making a whistling noise with each breath. She did come out, came all the way over to her feeding station, ate some lettuce, but apparently went back to bed in short order. I decided to weigh, measure and photograph her and she was already back in bed, but I pulled her out, and when I picked her up to weight, she made a kind of muffled coughing noise. I'm very worried about pneumonia, thinking maybe I should have my sister bring her into the vet for antibiotics, but I wanted to see if anyone here had any ideas first.


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## Yvonne G (Apr 21, 2014)

Hi, Bryna:

When you say she didn't come out of her cave during the winter, are you talking outside? You are aware that sulcatas don't hibernate and need to be kept warm during the winter, right?

Use your own good sense and judgement and take the tortoise to the vet, or not, but here's what I'd do. I would keep the tortoise inside for a week or so under a light that warms her up to at LEAST 80F degrees. It should be about 105F directly under the light and 80-85F all over the rest of the space you provide for her. The wheezing should clear up on its own in a week's time.

If she starts to have a colored or thick mucus from her nose, then she's beyond home care and needs a vet's attention and antibiotics.


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## Bryna (Apr 21, 2014)

No, she's definitely not outside, we live up in the mountains -had 6" of snow last week. That's why I was so concerned that she was out all Saturday night. I don't think it got close to freezing, but it was probably below 50 that night.  She has free range of most of the main living areas in our house, with a large dog crate with basking light in the living room as her 'cave', and a feeding station with another light in front of a wall of south facing windows in the kitchen. I don't know that it's really feasible to heat the place to 85 at night, but I just turned a heater on in front of her den. Sometimes it gets to 85 or warmer during the day, if it's sunny. Currently it's 76 in the kitchen. I will have my sister find a thermometer and get the temp in her den. Definitely no discharge so far, as you can see in the pics she looks quite clear eyed. Thank you for the advice!


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## Yvonne G (Apr 21, 2014)

You're going to have to set up some sort of hospital area for her so you can warm it up to 85F and keep it there. Maybe in the bathroom? the tortoise isn't going to be happy being cooped up, but if you want her to heal, you have to do this.


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## Maggie Cummings (Apr 21, 2014)

I'm going to add to what Yvonne said and say she totally is not being kept warm enough. The air in your house is too cold for her and that means that your floors are really too cold for her. The floor is no place for a tort. She can't digest her food unless she is hot enough. A tortoise needs to be set up in a way that the tortoise would live on his own. They are exotic animals, not dogs or even really pets. I say, and I really mean no disrespect, that your tort needs to be set up in his own habitat, with a UVB light, a sleeping place (hide) substrate and the ability for her to regulate her own body temperature. They move in and out of the basking light to keep a constant body temp. I also live in a cold climate with snow, and all of my tortoises or turtles are set up in their own habitat according to species...not bragging, just trying to show you you *can* do it...


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## Bryna (Apr 22, 2014)

With the increased heat, she seems a lot better this morning! With the heater going for her, it's been between 80-90 in the kitchen, which is slightly unpleasant and will probably result in an outrageous electric bill, but needs must. Her house has been between 83-88 at each of several checks yesterday and this morning. Interestingly, she also spent a few hours this morning under her basking light, which is something I've rarely seen her do, but may be because we don't seem to have many early morning sun patches in the house this time of year. But, after basking and eating, she's now racing around with great enthusiasm. I thought until I got my ear right next to her head that her breathing had cleared up, but she does still have a faint whistle. MUCH better than yesterday, though. So hopefully she will continue to improve. 

I did consider enclosing her in the laundry room, but as it's an interior room on the north side of the house, and has tile floors, I ultimately decided I could get the main rooms at least as warm, without having to restrict Morla from natural light. (She does have a UV light and a full spectrum light for basking, but I think she prefers sunlight).

Maggie, thank you for your advice. I will attempt to keep it warmer, and she does have the two lights, as well as two den areas (one warm, one cool). In a perfect world she would have her own house, but where we are living now is a temporary solution -when I moved down here for grad school, we rented a house down by the river, with a large solid fenced back yard that had a little (12*20) heated and air conditioned concrete floored doghouse. Plus pasture and barn for my horses and a nice front yard for the dogs. Sadly, we eventually realized that the septic system was overflowing under the house, the electric was not up to code, and the roof leaked. The landlady refused to make repairs, so we had to move out. The house we're in now was the best we could do on short notice, but it doesn't have winter tortoise accommodations. We initially thought that sunroom would work, but it eventually got too cold, so we had to move her upstairs. She's certainly too big for a table. I've been under the impression that temps in the 70s were just fine for tortoises of this size, as long as they had a hot area in which to bask. Obviously she needs something more right now because she's sick, but are you saying 70s are always too cold? I've never kept her warmer than that since she showed up last summer. I mean, there were summer days that got into the 80s and 90s, but she kept to the shade during hot spells and did her basking and then grazing first thing in the morning.


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## Tom (Apr 22, 2014)

Understand that this is a tropical species of tortoise. Where they come from there is no cold. Everyday reaches 90-110 degrees and a cold night might reach 65-68. They primarily live in underground burrows to "average" out these temperature extremes. My man made burrows hover around 80 degrees 24/7 during our summers which have similar temperature extremes to their home range's everyday temps. So if your thermostat says 70 up on the wall, it is colder down on the floor. If you use a temp gun or remote thermometer probe, you will see that is is significantly colder down there than up at human head level. It is not suitable for a tortoise to be running around loose in a house anyway. The cold temperatures on the floor are just one factor. My career has me working closely with many vets. They all know about my tortoise obsession (because I talk about it constantly...) and they show me all their interesting tortoise cases. I have seen all sorts of x-rays and pics of broken shells, broken legs, mauled shells, and all sorts of ingested items from tortoises that ran around loose in houses. Pen caps, coins, buttons, hair, wires, etc. These tortoises had to have their shells cut open with a saw to remove these items and save their lives at a cost of hundreds or thousands of dollars. It is just not worth the risk. Your tortoise needs a large, safe, dedicated, heated area to call home. I realize that this is difficult in your climate and situation, but that is what needs to be done. Maggie sets a great example with her super-duper large insulated and heated shed, but there are other ways to get it done too.

For your tortoises health, you need to work out some way of accomplishing this for the long term. Throwing lots of electric heat into a large room will temporarily solve the heat issue, but it will also contribute to dehydration and its related complications if you are not careful. A large insulated area, or at least a large closed room with some suitable humidity sources will eventually be needed.

Welcome to the challenges of keeping large tropical species in cold climates.  I hope we can help.


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## Bryna (Apr 22, 2014)

Ok, thank you for the info. I'm very concerned now. I guess I had gathered a wider range of temperature comfort when I did all of my reading when Morla showed up last summer. We are heading back to Oregon (Portland area) in about a month, and I had made the decision to leave Morla with my mom for while I finish up with grad school, because I will be spending a lot of time in China. The good news is, we have an insulated 12 *24 tack room in the barn that can be heated for her to spend time in in the winter. But, the reality is that I think it would be cruel to sentence her to spend that vast majority of her time in such a small space. She loves to wander, and is shockingly fast. I spoke to many people in the PNW who kept their tortoises, including sulcatas, outside during the summer, but it is rare for average temperatures to hit 80. I mean, when she's outside, she's free to dig to her heart's content, and we can construct any kind of den if she doesn't do it herself, but it's not going to be that warm unless I keep her in the barn all the time. I've gotten so attached to her, I'd hate to give her up, but I'd rather do that than imprison her forever. But the people I talked to that lived in the area seemed to have tortoises that were just fine outside in the summer.


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## Maggie Cummings (Apr 22, 2014)

I keep a 150 lb Sulcata in Corvallis and he has a 12'x20' heated insulated shed. All winter he sleeps and goes out on some days. I open his doggie door and give him the option of going out in the rain or snow and when he does, he goes back inside under his basking light when he gets cold. In my opinion the bigger they are, the easier they are to keep. Random escapes excepted...They can live fine in Oregon, as long as they are set up properly...


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## T33's Torts (Apr 22, 2014)

I live in SoCal, where the weather is mild. This allows me to make a smaller tortoise house, because my tort only stays in at night, and whenever its raining. Its 4'x4'x2' and fully insulated with an oil heater.


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