Recent content by TortugaFriend

Thank you everyone for your sympathy.

She did not have a temperature controlled outside shelter, just a hide, though she was just as likely to dig down in a corner under leaves and mulch. On the days where it did drop to the low 50s or get passed the 90s outside, or if it would rain, I would bring her inside and put her in a table...

I am near downtown LA. We aren't as cool as the beaches here and not as warm as the inland empire. It has only gotten into the 90s a couple of times since February when I brought her out of the fridge and at night it has dipped down to 55 a couple of nights. In the last few weeks it has been...

My post history here has been brief so far as I only got interested in adopting a tortoise after I hosted a neighbors escaped 3-toed turtle a few days. And this is probably my last post for a while as the tortoise I had adopted, Trixie, has died. ---- Last Sunday I took her to the vet when I...

Hmm, if only my Hermann's Trixie was interested in Hibiscus flowers...

I adopted Trixie back in Oct 25 and almost immediately she wanted to brumate. I managed to keep her up a few more weeks but as she wasn't pooping I started making plans to brumate her. Some of my family lives next door and had 3 different fridges to choose from but neither the desk cooler nor...

YT's algorithm just offered up another interesting video, this one is from a conservation group in Spain which is re-introducing Hermans to national parks:

Following some suggestions on line I took a few smaller chips of this stuff and sprinkled them with drops of some hydrochloric acid and instantly got a lot of fizzing indicating that it is indeed limestone. The gas that is produced in the reaction is just C02 and what is left is calcium...

I hadn't seen this video posted around so thought I'd share the link. These little torts sure can traverse the rugged environment capably. Here's the video link ID in case the video ever goes private: youtube.com / watch ? v = KkZKC-kh0v4

My little hill in Los Angeles is covered in this stuff. It is soft and if I apply any amount of pressure, it just crumbles. I have been using it as a slate and am wondering if I could more of Trixie's (hermanni) outdoor enclosure with it. Consequently there are lots of little pebbles of it...

I watch a lot of the tortoise content on YT and enjoyed this one as well. Eleanor Tirtasana also has a good video on prepping torts for brumation which I liked:

This is gonna be an odd question. Have any of you guys ever collected greens and served them up months later dried up? I ask because with all the rain that has hit Southern California recently our area has exploded with greens many if which seem acceptable on the tortoise table app. So the...

I have a question about such poor torts. Obviously, if the MBD or deformity is severe enough to affect proper digestion eventually, it could result in a smaller tort. How does this affect their lifespan? Does it shorten it dramatically?

Update, Trixie has not shown any interest in eating even when we had a mini heat wave a few weeks back in LA and she was soaking up the sun. Her only interest is trying to dig down into her substrate. She drinks a bit when I soak her, but is barely passing any feces, so I think she is all pooped...

Well, there's plenty of desert tortoise in private homes already, but the guidance is that they shouldn't go back to wild because they could take pathogens back to the original populations. Tim Shields, the conservationist in the video, makes the point in another video that between 1975 and...