# I can't believe he's gone....



## Olivia (Jan 10, 2012)

Hi guys. I havenâ€™t been on here in a while and things have been going great with my iberian tortoise until about 2 days ago. Before then he was fully conscious and energetic and doing his routine. I think thatâ€™s when something happened, from what I can tell by trying to go over what could have gone wrong in my mind. This morning I found him unresponsive. He was not moving, stiff and his eyes were closed and sunken in. I believe he has passed away last night. He was a baby (2 inches in length) and I only had him for about 2 months. I keep going over it and over it in my head what I did wrong. I have no idea what it could be. I canâ€™t believe he is dead. I read up on everything when I first got him and I could have sworn I had his care and setup and everything spot on. I also want to point out that I bought him from a vendor that I know and trust and I know that he was perfectly healthy when I first got him.

Sunday evening when my bf and I were taking care of all our critters we moved his enclosure from the floor to an empty spot on the bottom shelf of the rack where we keep our tanks. We also noticed that his spot bulb went out, so we replaced it. Even if that bulb was out for a few days, which it wasnâ€™t because I go in there every morning to feed him, the ambient temp in our pet room is in the low to mid 70sF. So it must have gone out mid-day Sunday. The old bulb was a 30W spot and all we had was a 50W spot bulb. So we put it in and turned down the dimmer so it wouldnâ€™t get too hot. Lights went off an hour or so later. I do not remember if he was out or sleeping but his food dish was empty. Next morning, Monday, about half hour after the lights went on I went in and put food in his dish (baby bok choy with calcium dust) and the temp under the bulb was in the high 120sF. So I turned down the bulb a little more and went to work for 8 hours. I did not see him out. He usually is but not always. That evening after we ate dinner we went into the pet room to check on everyone and I noticed he was already dug in and his food was barely eaten, if at all. Iâ€™m pretty sure not at all. We measured the temp and it was 123F under the bulb so we adjusted the light and I did see his head was moving and part of his shell was exposed since he wasnâ€™t buried all that deep in his sleeping area off to the side of the spot bulb. We adjusted the temp from 120F down to 110F under the bulb, 80F in his sleeping pile, and 74F on the cool side. If the temp was an issue he had cooler areas in his enclosure even if the spot bulb was too hot. This morning I went in to set in his new fresh food and he still hasnâ€™t come out. He usually gets up early and warms up and then goes for the food, and waits by the dish. I didnâ€™t think much of it. An hour later I went back to see how he likes his food since I decided to give him a piece of fruit as his first ever treat and found his dish untouched, I decided to dig him up and found him unresponsive. I grabbed a tray of water figuring maybe he is dehydrated and set him in there but he did not move at all. I even flipped him over to get a response since tortoises hate that but no response there either. His head and limbs were all stiffened up. 

SETUP â€“ He is in a 19â€L x 14â€W x 8â€H plastic open-top bin with visual barriers to prevent climbing or rubbing. He has one spot bulb 7â€over soil with a temp of 100F underneath usually, and an Exo Tera ReptiGlo 10.0 desert UVB bulb 18â€ above the soil. His setup is split length wise half is a soil mixture of 80% coco fiber and 10 % combo of wood chips and moss and sand and leaf litter. The other half is aspen bedding not shredded aspen but more like aspen shavings. There is slate on the hot side and a hide on the cool side. His food is all on the cool side (1 water dish, 1 timothy hay dish, 1 green leaf veggie dish, and half calcium bone but I dust his food and he never touched this). He usually sleeps in the aspen shavings on the warmer side by digging himself into a pile in the other (not spot bulb) corner on the warm side. He naps from time to time under the spot bulb. Older picture is here - http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-temp-question--35297#axzz1j4p6EID9

TEMP â€“ The temperature before we changed out the bulb was 75F on the cool side, mid 80sF in the middle and low100sF under the spot. Ambient temp in pet room is about 75F and night time temp is in the high 60sF. Humidity is 30% from what I can guess. If he did experience high temperatures it was only for that one day on Monday and a little on Sunday evening. 

FOOD â€“ I fed him only green leafy vegetables. I went by the list on the forum for desert dwelling tortoises. I would buy one type of green and feed it to him until he either ate through the supply or the thing went bad. I would then go find a different type of leafy green. I would also dust every other feeding. He would get fresh greens each morning. There were usually leftovers and he would go back to those mid-day, but then each morning he would get fresh greens. I dusted with Zoo Med Repti Calcium with and without D3 at first and then switched a month ago over to Rep-Cal Phosphorous Free Calcium w/ Vit. D3. I also dusted daily the first month and then went to every other day since I did not want to over dust and he has a bulb with UVB. So far he ate: opuntia, mustard greens, timothy hay, spinach (maybe 5 times), nappa cabbage, endive, baby bok choy (last thing he was eating before he passed), collard greens. He would devour food like itâ€™s nothing. He definitely had a healthy appetite and never an issue with feeding. 

FECIES â€“ he poops regularly with healthy looking feces. Every 3 days on average. Last week I found two poops one old and one fresh. 

BATH â€“ I used to bathe him every 2 days so he would drink but now that he has a water dish I stopped doing that. It has been a month. I did see him drink out of the water dish sometime last week so I do believe he was using it.

My hypothesis for his death:
- Maybe pesticides on the baby bok choy caused poisoning. I washed all veggies thoroughly. He was on this vegetable for the past week. 
- The day of high temps.
- Maybe he ate some aspen while feeding. His dish for the leafy greens rests on aspen shavings. Sometimes he would pull a leafy green out of the dish and munch. Maybe he ate aspen. His feces, the last two, did not show any signs of impactation or aspen. 
- He dehydrated. Maybe not doing the water baths was what caused him to die. Even if he had a water dish he may have not really used it enough.
- Over/under dusting. Maybe wrong dust.

I donâ€™t understand how he can go from being health to being dead in a span of a few days. I just donâ€™t understand.


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## cemmons12 (Jan 10, 2012)

So sorry for your loss, my heart hurts for you... 
I don't know what I would do with myself if I lost my best buddy Cooper.
I hope your pain ease's with time...


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## wellington (Jan 10, 2012)

I am so sorry for the loss of your little tort  Sometimes even when all was done right things like this still can happen and we may never know why. Maybe someone else will have an answer for you. If not, know you did the best for him/her for the time spent with you.


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## Yvonne G (Jan 10, 2012)

I'm so sorry, Olivia.


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## Maggie Cummings (Jan 10, 2012)

I am sorry for your loss. I have experienced death in the same way. Eating and healthy acting one day then 2 days later dead. 

I am wondering about the aspen shavings. I don't believe they are a good substrate for tortoises. Does anyone else have an opinion on them?


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## lynnedit (Jan 10, 2012)

That is awful. It does not sound like you did anything wrong. You hear that sometimes they pass suddenly w/o reason.
Maybe lack of soaking, but if you saw him urinate, etc.? I am not sure you will know the reason, but I can understand wanting to figure it out. 

Aspen is safe for bedding. A bit drier than cypress mulch, but a safe wood. TortoiseNerd used it a lot.
I use it for burrowing and the torts love it. Like you, I just use it in part of the enclosure; coir and cypress mulch in the rest.

I remember another member having her torts die suddenly, she suspected cucumber (batch with pesticides) but could never be sure.

So sorry to hear this!


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## Tim/Robin (Jan 10, 2012)

maggie3fan said:


> I am sorry for your loss. I have experienced death in the same way. Eating and healthy acting one day then 2 days later dead.
> 
> I am wondering about the aspen shavings. I don't believe they are a good substrate for tortoises. Does anyone else have an opinion on them?



We use aspen and have for years. I usually don't put hatchlings on it until they are several months old. 

Sorry you lost your little one. If I had to guess, I would say dehydration. It would not take much for a hatchling to dehydrate, the warmer temps may have been just enough. I know some of our tortoises NEVER consistently go to a water dish even though it is there daily. I continually soak hatchlings evey other day at the least until they are nearly a year old.


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## Olivia (Jan 10, 2012)

Thanks guys. It hurts loosing him. I buried him an hour ago. Your words are greatly appreciated. When I found him I couldn't stop crying. Lynnedit mine used to burrow and sleep in it too. It seemed an easy substrate to bury in and that is why I used it. I read some posts by other members who lost their tortoises like I did and it breaks my heart even more because I now know how it feels and I feel for them. 



Tim/Robin said:


> maggie3fan said:
> 
> 
> > I am sorry for your loss. I have experienced death in the same way. Eating and healthy acting one day then 2 days later dead.
> ...



That may have been the cause. He was 2 inches long. Does that qualify as a hatching?


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