# Conflicting advice



## Kapidolo Farms (Sep 6, 2016)

I just offered some ideas for keeping Home's hinge-back tortoises and noticed even practices I don't employ sound contrary to the advice I offered, or at least seem like they could be conflicting.

So what's up with that??

In ecology there is a concept called a bounding box. For tortoise husbandry it can contain the worst advice that worked, and the best advice that were optimal for the individual tortoises.

Think about a simple X Y graph. The X axis is the one that is flat or horizontal, the Y is the tall one or vertical. Please don't roll your eyes. 






Say a good day time ambient temp is (on this graph) 4 on the X axis. However the range of 3 to 5 works. Now lets consider relative humidity on the Y axis. Say 5 is best, but 4 to 5.5 works. Now we have a square, the usually best ranges for only two parameters. That is really a only the beginning of the box.

Your individual tortoise maybe came from the colder dryer part of the range of Temp and RH that works for most of the individuals of that species. But you center the Temp and RH on the range. Your tortoise will have an adjustment period, if it's new or been kept by someone else who uses a different part of the accpetable range. It's okay, you are doing well for the animal, but adjustments can be made by you or the tortoise. A little adjusting can help if implemented by both.

If the tortoise is staying at a cooler dryer place in the enclosure, that can be a signal to adjust the enclosure. 

Those ranges used when people give advice came from many observations of many tortoises, and may include data from people with funky thermometers and RH sensors. Maybe some numbers got jumbled. But for the most part the range is probably well sorted out.

Now ad a third component, say cover or places to hide. We now have a Z coordinate.






Now are 'space' is floating, it's "3D" and it is bound by temp, RH, and hide places. Say that floating black dot represents 5 hide places and a temp of 3-5, RH of 4-5.5.

New variables can be added until say five or six of the ones with the most impact on the tortoise are incorporated. Temp, RH, Hide spaces, parasite load, diet, access to water. Now the floating black dot is a ball of ranges that are acceptable to an aggregate of tortoises than have been observed.

It's a bounding box of habitat, or for us enclosure parameters. 

Within this box is conflicting advice. It can be very confusing, as one parameter may offset another when too much of one can sorta be balanced by more or less of another. Each parameter for all tortoises is a much bigger box, but not best for each species, or even each individual. Most species have a pretty small box. So species specific advice should be less variable than any kind of general "tortoise" advice will ever accomplish.

This is a very simple breakdown of a talk "Homage to Santa Rosalai . . ." by Hutchinson. It addresses a part of a larger ecological idea of competitive exclusion. That would take into account 'why tortoises are not everywhere - 'cause other animals are better at using aspects of the environment than tortoises are able.


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## Yvonne G (Sep 6, 2016)

By jove, I got it...I do believe I got it!


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## edwardbo (Sep 6, 2016)

Will , what prompted this post?.....understanding this will end many tiffs keepers seem to like to argue about .


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## Kapidolo Farms (Sep 6, 2016)

edwardbo said:


> Will , what prompted this post?.....understanding this will end many tiffs keepers seem to like to argue about .


Well, like I said, I just gave some advice, and I agreed with someone else, and all they said, and then offered a POV that was not a perfect venn diagram of advice to the other person.






So what to do? Offer an explanation that helped me understand much about how animals use space and time.


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## edwardbo (Sep 6, 2016)

Can this help the presidential campaign ?


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## JoesMum (Sep 6, 2016)

Will said:


> So what to do? Offer an explanation that helped me understand much about how animals use space and time.


As long as we're not talking parallel universes, I think I can keep up 

Seriously though, I like your explanation


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## Kapidolo Farms (Sep 6, 2016)

edwardbo said:


> Can this help the presidential campaign ?


it would make no difference, someone will become the next president. They will do more or less the same stuff. I think to a great extent it is a false dichotomy. But i don't really know that, just feels that way to me.


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## Tidgy's Dad (Sep 6, 2016)

Will said:


> I just offered some ideas for keeping Home's hinge-back tortoises and noticed even practices I don't employ sound contrary to the advice I offered, or at least seem like they could be conflicting.
> 
> So what's up with that??
> 
> ...


Yes, a basic explanation in terms of logical parameters. 
You mention individuals being different as well as species. 
Of course this is true, and what we all do is make our assumptions based on our experience and what we have heard. 
Some owners have a hundred torts brought up in the same way. Or a different way. 
Others have a few or just one brought up in the same or a different way. 
Your box might become smaller and smaller depending on whether you are talking about Mediterraneans in general, a particular species, subspecies; variety or individual, but there will still always be debate. 
And as for competitive exclusion, that's not really a factor in people who keep tortoises at home. 
Still, a very interesting post. 
We will all still have our differences of opinion, little in this hobby is empirical enough and we haven't yet got enough years of data.


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## BrianWI (Sep 7, 2016)

Will said:


> it would make no difference, someone will become the next president. They will do more or less the same stuff. I think to a great extent it is a false dichotomy. But i don't really know that, just feels that way to me.



The best title for this year's campaign is "Pick Your Poison".


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## BrianWI (Sep 7, 2016)

We could write a "Tortoise Simulator" and move our hobby to the virtual world.


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## Tom (Sep 7, 2016)

Nope. Sorry Will. Nice try, but according to my detractors here, *MY* way is the *ONLY* way. Many of them have told me this...


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