Recent content by thatrebecca

Ah, thank you! I assumed it was harmless clover. They don't have any in their enclosures, but when they are free to roam the yard they sometimes snack on it. I'll steer them elsewhere next time. The flower on the ground is a camellia. They don't touch them.

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It's going to be above 80 degrees every day for the next week in the San Fernando Valley, so I took the boxes for my two juvenile CDTs out of their winter storage and put them in the shade. Within an hour the bigger one, Gomez, was stirring. They both got soaks and some outdoor time. Morticia is...

We have been slowly making changes to our enclosures for our 2 CDTs, Gomez and Morticia. There's more we plan to do, I wanted to share the latest. The clay pots have testudo mix and dandelions. The plantings in the ground are drought tolerant native grasses and succulents. The burrows are topped...

Thanks, Yvonne. I've been leaving the old food and that is clearly not helping.

Flies seem to love the outdoor enclosures for my CDTs, especially the areas around their food and water dishes. Is there anything I can do? The tortoises don't seem to mind, but I find them pretty gross.

Gomez just can't get enough of this gorgeous weather!

How are your torts spending the first day of spring? Mind are plowing through the tulip beds. (And, no, I do not let the dog around them unsupervised).

First let me start by saying that I know torts and dogs don't mix, and mine are never permitted together unsupervised. And now let me tell you a story: Tonight we couldn't find Morticia, one of our CDTs, in her enclosure. We had been looking in all her usual hiding spots for over an hour --...

I haven't started offering supplemental food yet, since my CDTs just came out of their boxes last week. Morticia's appetite is clearly coming back, though -- she started in on some hibiscus blossoms that fell in the rain.

Look who's up and stomping through the tulips after a long soak!

Gomez and Morticia have been down for 6 weeks now. We had the rare sight of frost on the grass this morning here in LA. It got down to 43 degrees in their brumation spot. I tickled their toes and weighed them today and both are maintaining their weight and doing well. Hope everyone else's...

Tickled their toes this morning to make sure the torts were doing OK. All seems well. I put some cold water bottles in the freezer with them because we're having a heatwave. Temp in their (unplugged) chest freezer is 48; in the shed that houses the freezer it's 71 (hooray for the freezer!)

It IS hard! The first brumation was the toughest cause I worried about them a lot. Now I feel more comfortable with it after a couple successful winters, but I still miss seeing their little goofy selves roaming around.

It's official. Today I boxed Gomez and Morticia for the winter. Both stopped eating a couple weeks ago, and stopped coming out of their hides a few days ago. They each got a final 90-minute warm soak today, a chance to cool in their hides and then I boxed them as temps started to drop this...