Recent content by Vintage

  1. Vintage

    What were your reasons?

    I grew up hearing my mother's stories about a pet tortoise they kept in their backyard in Scotland. Ever since then I wanted to have a tortoise of my own someday. Eventually a few years ago someone gave me a small Russian tortoise but it turned out to be sick. I spent months trying to get it to...
  2. Vintage

    What’s wrong with my tortoise

    My tort had a bit of white crust on her carapace and I just gently scratched it off with a fingernail. It never came back. I soak her every day because when I got her, she was a bit pyramided and her plastron scutes are concave (sunken). I think the white stuff was just hard water scale from...
  3. Vintage

    Should I wake Squirt up for bath time in the morning?

    I soak my tort in the evenings while I'm watching TV after dinner. I put him in a tub on the side table next to my chair. I just keep an eye on the water temperature and change the water when it gets too cool. I find this schedule works for me because it's the only time of day I'm guaranteed not...
  4. Vintage

    Redfoot reducing food intake

    Sorry, I wrote 6 hours but I meant 9. By "visible light" I just meant non-UVA/UVB, I have a separate long bulb for that. I just use a household LED bulb for the regular light, it's mounted in one corner of the enclosure so that there are different levels of light for her to choose from. Anyway I...
  5. Vintage

    Possibly constipated tortoise

    I usually soak my tort for at least 45 minutes in "warmer than lukewarm" water. When the water cools, I change it right away. Often she doesn't poop until soak time is almost over. If he's hanging out in the water dish this may mean he needs longer or warmer soaks. Also, try feeding foods with...
  6. Vintage

    Do red foot tortoises likes to eat poo?

    My redfoot has taken to eating her poo while she's soaking. She has done it for the past two days in a row. Eating poo is a very common habit in nature. Many herbivores like horses and elephants eat their mother's poo shortly after they're born. It's their way of "seeding" their intestines with...
  7. Vintage

    Redfoot reducing food intake

    I have a 2 year old who has been gradually going off of her food. When I first got her she was eating some or all of her food every day. Now she is tapering off her food intake and barely touches the food now. She shows no sign of any illness (I soak her for about 45 minutes per day, she is...
  8. Vintage

    Question about using Pellets

    I use the Rep-Cal pellets, aka "fruity pebbles". They are enriched with vitamins and calcium. They smell like fruit and can be mixed with fruit juice or water. I feed them with fruit or greens, she usually eats at least some of them. It's formulated to be fed alone or you can mix it with other...
  9. Vintage

    New Tortoise parent to a juvenile Redfoot

    They love fishy, stinky foods. When my girl goes off of her food I mix in a bit of canned tuna or salmon cat food, or canned tuna/salmon/sardines, along with her greens, or even fish food shrimp pellets. It works every time for me. It was comical watching her the first time I gave her fish, her...
  10. Vintage

    "Ok, I pooped..."

    "Bath time OVER now."
  11. Vintage

    A few UVB lighting and housing questions

    That's good to know! In the meantime I did get her an 18" T5HO light, which I installed across one end of her enclosure. Another question: How many hours of light should they get? Right now I have it set for 9 hours per day on a timer. Or should I have a separate light just for visible light...
  12. Vintage

    Concave scutes on plastron?

    I only got her a week ago, I'm not sure what conditions she was kept in before that. I read in one of the care sheets here that spraying their carapace every day helps prevent pyramiding, though it referred to hatchlings. Would it work for an older tortoise? In the meantime I'll start soaking...
  13. Vintage

    Concave scutes on plastron?

    Thank you, that helps to clear up the confusion. It explains why her carapace is smooth but the plastron scutes are sunken. I'm not bothered about the sunken scutes but I wanted to make sure it wasn't a sign of illness or poor husbandry. I now have her in a high humidity enclosure with moist...
  14. Vintage

    Concave scutes on plastron?

    1. I wasn't asking about the entire plastron being concave, I was asking about the individual scutes of the plastron being concave. 2. Re sexing, kindly refer to the sexing diagram I posted previously. I took that from this redfoot forum. It shows that in redfoots the anal scutes are a...
  15. Vintage

    Concave scutes on plastron?

    I'm not too worried about hydration with her. Her carapace is perfectly smooth. She has a mister attached to a humidistat that's set to 90% rh. She's active and healthy and eats like a horse every day. She also soaks and poops in her water dish every day. I'm wondering if concave plastron...
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