Northen Italy Testudo graeca ibera

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What a wonderful habitat you have made for them! Those are some lucky and happy tortoises.

I am a gardener and my only comment would be to regularly check the area for weeds that can be poisonous. I'm amazed how quickly I get new weeds in my garden!
Thank you for the compliments.I would like to create an habitat that resemble a natural habitat of the specie and have a loto of enrichment for the individual tortoise.
 

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I don't know how I missed this thread the first time around.

I have never had any Greek tortoises, and don't know anything about them, but I applaud your husbandry skills. The outside enclosure is great! At first I worried the rocks might be a falling hazard, but with all the plants I'm sure the rocks are just fine. I like the little "sun room."

It looks and reads like you really have your act together!

I do have one suggestion for you - Get the smaller ones out every morning and feed them special. Sometimes babies don't know what plants are food, and they may not be eating as much as they should. A few grocery store greens in the a.m. isn't going to harm them, and may just give them the growing nudge they need.
Thank you for the suggestion. As soon as the tortoise would be awakened from the brumation I will feed the two little one myself with some good item. They are healthy and have a correct Jakson number, only very small.
I think that a two month brumation will be enough for such little babys. Wath do you think?
 

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Untile now my 4 iberas are in brumation from 55 days. From wath I read around and wath tell my vet for young tortoise a 2 months brumation are enough. So in the next week I will wake them up. Meanwhile I prepared they indoor pen with a lot of transpanted plants and a lot of sowed plants. They are: plantain, shepherd purse, clover, wild chicory, turnip. So when I put inside they can graze on the plants as well as eat the plants that I feed directly.
This is the table for now.
20220131_074225_HDR.jpg

A detail.
20220131_074241_HDR.jpg
 

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Three days ago I wake up my four greeks from hibernation. They sleep for 56 days.
I bring the box from the ventilation shaft of the cellar inside to the cellar at 13 C (55 F) for one day and then in the room of the indoor enclosure at 20 C for a half day and then in the open enclosue with all the lights on.
They mantain the same exact weight they had at the beginning of brumation!
I soak them in lukewarm water to hel hydration.
Within an interval of 1 hour to 1 day all four begin to eat.
Here you can see them in the enclosure.
20220202_095321_HDR.jpg
 

LJL1982

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Three days ago I wake up my four greeks from hibernation. They sleep for 56 days.
I bring the box from the ventilation shaft of the cellar inside to the cellar at 13 C (55 F) for one day and then in the room of the indoor enclosure at 20 C for a half day and then in the open enclosue with all the lights on.
They mantain the same exact weight they had at the beginning of brumation!
I soak them in lukewarm water to hel hydration.
Within an interval of 1 hour to 1 day all four begin to eat.
Here you can see them in the enclosure.
View attachment 340173
I never saw your thread before! It was really enjoyable to read! You clearly have researched and made a lot of effort on the care of your tortoises!

All the names are ones we would recognise in the UK, except Oogway...can you provide some background, is it a name from a child's TV programme or a popular Italian name?

Please keep posting, I've been inspired to create a more natural indoor enclosure for my adult Ibera :)

Best wishes from Wales,

Laura
 

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Hi Laura and thank you for your appreciation. This is Oogway:
Oogway-white.png
It's the old master of Kung Fu Panda animation film. If you made your ibera enclosure more natural, it will be more pleased to live inside and you will be more pleased to watch it.
 

LJL1982

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Hi Laura and thank you for your appreciation. This is Oogway:
View attachment 341843
It's the old master of Kung Fu Panda animation film. If you made your ibera enclosure more natural, it will be more pleased to live inside and you will be more pleased to watch it.
Ahh, after I saw yours, I saw another Oogway! Kung-fu Panda explains it haha!

I've already ordered what I think I will need and will do the switch on the weekend!

Thank you for responding :)
 

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Short news from my testudo. After a lot of reading I try tu upgrade my inner enclosure from "tortoise table" style to a fully closed chamber. I did to help to maintain a higher humidity and promote a smooth grow of the shell without pyramiding. Since it's a short term accomodation I proceed with a wood frame enclose in greenhouse PVC sheet.
This is the woode frame:
20220317_182100.jpg
And this is the finished job:
20220319_073240.jpg
Yesterday was one year that I have my four tortoise. I will share with you their growing graph. Usually i weight them, when not in hybernation, once a week.
1 year growth.jpg
As you can see there are a lot of difference in the four.
1CD "Hoogway" went from 35 grams to 136 grams, a really pig!
2CD "Margherita" from 27 grams to only 33 grams, a really wren.
The vet that I bring the four tortoise for a heath check told me that all four are healty tortoise and that I must let them grow with their own pace. All four have the same inner enclosure, outdoor pen, food, water bathing, temperature, UV lamps, etc. etc. All four made the same hybernation of two mounth this winter. I hope the vet is right.
 

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This is a photo of the four. As you can see the shell is super smooth, also in the fast growing one. So there could be fast growing without pyramiding.
20220401_083703.jpg
 
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This is a photo of the four. As you can see the shell is super smooth, also in the fast growing one. So there could be fast growing without pyramiding.
View attachment 344079

They look beautiful!! I have really enjoyed reading your posts and seeing your beautiful enclosures!! I am a newbie myself, but have experience with many animals and have researched extensively on tortoises as well. I own a group of 3 Testudo graeca ibera from the Ankara locale. Slow steady growth on my torts makes me plenty happy. I know people can put weight on them faster, but that's not my style and I try not to worry. I strive for a natural way of doing things (for example I don't use Mazuri, just fresh food), and I don't use humidity chambers. I was really drawn to Garden State Tortoise and their natural, hands-off approach that lets the tortoises do their thing and allows them to thrive naturally.

I have kept my tortoises outside and in a table style enclosure (but not as cool as your big outdoor one!) since I got them last August timeframe. They had a brief stint where we brought the enclosure indoors instead of brumating for their first year, but this Spring they are back outside in the California weather. I used Garden State Tortoise's care guides to decide how I would raise mine. He recommends a method utilizing 4-6" of deep moist substrate and a life outdoors. In this setup babies can burrow to find their needed level of humidity. I used an old 4x2 hydroponic tray (which was ridiculously perfect), built a custom lid, and drilled holes in the bottom for airflow and drainage since I wet it often.

For what it is worth, I do not think your 1 year old tortoises need a humidity chamber. You did such an incredible job making one though! Some people do not use them at all for Testudo, but I'm not sure those that do would utilize past the one year mark anyways..? I could definitely be wrong. I understand it is a very popular way to raise tortoises on the forum, and seems to work best for most species over their first several months of life. I don't generally like to go against the most popular advice, but I wanted to throw my research out there; both Garden State Tortoise and Tortoise Supply do not use humidity chambers for Testudo species. This is from the Tortoise Supply website at the bottom of the right hand column under care of Northern ibera greek babies:


"We don't use the "closed chamber" method (keeping airflow very restricted to increase humidity to the point that clouds form in the enclosure). It is very risky if/when temperatures get below about 80, and mold, shell rot, and respiratory problems become a lot more common in those conditions. We keep them open top in the warm area, and enclosed, warm and humid within the hide (like they would be in the wild). They are free to choose the conditions, temperatures, and humidity levels they want within that setup. "


I understand the pressure to create a humidity dome on this forum since those are so popular here, but even Tom, who is their largest advocate, will say he does not have experience with the Testudo and defers to other breeders for which Testudo are their specialty. I think you are doing an incredible job taking care of your babies, trust your instincts!! I think your enclosures were perfect before the humidity dome.
 

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Thank you MotherofDragons for your post. I will tell you that my humid chamber, during the day, is open for ar least half of the hours. I made it closed in first so I can close it during night as Garden State Tortoise tell in their website care sheet. So all the tortoise, even those that don't like sleep in the humid hide, can have a spike in relative humidity.
 

zolasmum

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I never saw your thread before! It was really enjoyable to read! You clearly have researched and made a lot of effort on the care of your tortoises!

All the names are ones we would recognise in the UK, except Oogway...can you provide some background, is it a name from a child's TV programme or a popular Italian name?

Please keep posting, I've been inspired to create a more natural indoor enclosure for my adult Ibera :)

Best wishes from Wales,

Laura
Oogway is in fact actually the Chinese word for tortoise
Angie
 

zolasmum

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Are you from China? Can you share with us the ideogramm of the word?
No, I'm afraid I'm not from China - we take our tortoise out with us every day - we live near the sea in the south of England, and meet a lot of tourists, who are surprised and interested to see Zola, the tortoise. We ask people from other countries what the word for tortoise is in their language , if we don't already know . One time we went to Stonehenge, a famous ancient site, and there were lots of foreigners there - many of whom were more interested in Zola than the giant stones. That was when we first started collecting names - we have probably names from 50 or so countries now. It is lovely when we are able to surprise someone with a word from their language - for example, a family from Ukraine we met recently -it made them really happy (it's chiripacka).
But we don't cheat - it's only words from people we have actually met .
Angie
 

zolasmum

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No, I'm afraid I'm not from China - we take our tortoise out with us every day - we live near the sea in the south of England, and meet a lot of tourists, who are surprised and interested to see Zola, the tortoise. We ask people from other countries what the word for tortoise is in their language , if we don't already know . One time we went to Stonehenge, a famous ancient site, and there were lots of foreigners there - many of whom were more interested in Zola than the giant stones. That was when we first started collecting names - we have probably names from 50 or so countries now. It is lovely when we are able to surprise someone with a word from their language - for example, a family from Ukraine we met recently -it made them really happy (it's chiripacka).
But we don't cheat - it's only words from people we have actually met .
Angie
I forgot to mention that Oogway also means long life. My favourite is- kaploumba - which is Turkish - it sounds like a magic spell -like we would say in English - Abracadabra !
Angie
 

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It's already 3 weeks that I had put my tortoise outdoor. Here the weather is very warm and dry.
This is the outdoor enclosure. I must trim a few the plants.
20220521_095646.jpg
And this are 3 of the four basking today in the morning sun.
20220521_095700.jpg
 

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Sad day for me today. In my chek of the outdoor pen I found my little greeck Margherita dead.😢 Probably it happened from a few day. As you can read from all my previus post Margherita was the little tortoise that not grow a single gram in a full year. I'm prepared for something bad but it's always harsh to loose an animal that you are together for a long time. Luckly the other 3 are fine and growing steady.
 
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Sad day for me today. In my chek of the outdoor pen I found my little greeck Margherita dead.😢 Probably it happened from a few day. As you can read from all my previus post Margherita was the little tortoise that not grow a single gram in a full year. I'm prepared for something bad but it's always harsh to loose an animal that you are together for a long time. Luckly the other 3 are fine and growing steady.
I am sorry for your loss. You have provided beautifully for them and I'm sure it was not for lack of effort on your part.
 

Gillian M

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A few days ago I made this photo of 2CD Margherita basking under a pale morning sun.
It's always fun to see the strange position they take to assure themselves to be the most perpendicular to the sun as they can. This one was almost vertical on they rear leg leaned on a dandelion plant.
It seems he is sleeping nice;)
View attachment 329098
Gorgeous.
 
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