Not eating

Marcus Harrison · Mar 19, 2018

Hello, I’ve had my Russian Tortoise over a year now and everything’s been fine. But recently the tortoise had not been eating for a few weeks now.. he eats a tiny bit but not a lot at all. I give him soaks and there’s always water in his enclosure.

Temperature: 26 degrees C (79F)

Marcus Harrison · Mar 19, 2018

Marcus Harrison said:
Hello, I’ve had my Russian Tortoise over a year now and everything’s been fine. But recently the tortoise had not been eating for a few weeks now.. he eats a tiny bit but not a lot at all. I give him soaks and there’s always water in his enclosure.

Temperature: 26 degrees C (79F)

Please help.. he’s really lethargic and hasn’t been eating for weeks

RosemaryDW · Mar 19, 2018

Marc I’m not experienced with indoor enclosures but someone who is is going to come in and ask what is the temp on the warm side (under the basking lamp) and the cool side. They are also going to ask about night time temperatures.

And they’ll need to see pictures of the enclosure. If you can provide those things now it will help the expert that can help you.

Marcus Harrison · Mar 19, 2018

Thankyou. I’ve just soaked him and he was drifting off. I don’t know whether that was because it is late. The enclosure isn’t very big but I can’t really upgrade at the moment. Under the basking light it’s in the 90’s (F) (difficult to accurately check and cooler area is in the 80’s. Because the enclosure is quite small, it’s hard to make it any cooler.. night time temperatures: I’ve never checked. He has a heat mat that’s on 24hrs day but we live in the UK. It’s -5 degrees C tonight here. Obviously the central heating is on in the house but he’s in a fairly cold room so it may be a little cold but I can’t give accurate figures at the minute. We have him tomatos, cucumber and his usual mixed leaves and he ate a few leaves but every tomato and cucumber but that’s it recently really...

Marcus Harrison · Mar 19, 2018

His enclosure

Bee62 · Mar 19, 2018

Marcus Harrison said:
Hello, I’ve had my Russian Tortoise over a year now and everything’s been fine. But recently the tortoise had not been eating for a few weeks now.. he eats a tiny bit but not a lot at all. I give him soaks and there’s always water in his enclosure.

Temperature: 26 degrees C (79F)

26 C is much too cold for a tortoise. In a later post of you you wrote that is is warmer, maybe, or not ?
As long as you are not knowing the exact temps:
-Basking spot
-Rest of the enclosure
-Night temps
it is impossible to say what is going on with your tortoise but I am pretty sure that you keep him or her much too cold and she/he is not able to digest the food properly.
It is also possible that your tortoise has a respiration infect from being kept too cold at night.
Check your temps with a digital thermometer and come back with the result.
Pics of your tortoise ( face, eyes, carapax and plastron ) and pics of the whole enclosure are helpfull too.
Without these things we can`t help you or your tortoise.

Marcus Harrison · Mar 19, 2018

Bee62 said:
26 C is much too cold for a tortoise. In a later post of you you wrote that is is warmer, maybe, or not ?
As long as you are not knowing the exact temps:
-Basking spot
-Rest of the enclosure
-Night temps
it is impossible to say what is going on with your tortoise but I am pretty sure that you keep him or her much too cold and she/he is not able to digest the food properly.
It is also possible that your tortoise has a respiration infect from being kept too cold at night.
Check your temps with a digital thermometer and come back with the result.
Pics of your tortoise ( face, eyes, carapax and plastron ) and pics of the enclosure are helpfull too.
Without these things we can`t help you or your tortoise.

Okay. The 26 degrees was wrong it was warmer. At night the temperature definitely drops below what it should though. I will try and get pictures in the morning but I’ll see what photos I have for now. It’s in the 90s in basking area and 80s elsewhere. But it gets colder at night and I think quite a lot colder. I’m going to try and address that.

This is an old photo of her sleeping but she doesn’t look too dissimilar to this now..

Bee62 · Mar 19, 2018

Marcus Harrison said:
Okay. The 26 degrees was wrong it was warmer. At night the temperature definitely drops below what it should though. I will try and get pictures in the morning but I’ll see what photos I have for now. It’s in the 90s in basking area and 80s elsewhere. But it gets colder at night and I think quite a lot colder. I’m going to try and address that. View attachment 233564
This is an old photo of her sleeping but she doesn’t look too dissimilar to this now..

View attachment 233565

Thank you for the pics but a actual one would be better. You often can see by the look of the eyes if a tort is sick or not.
It is also possible that she wants to brumate when it is too cold at night.
I would soak her every day in 39 C warm water and push up the temps a little bit.
Basking spot should be 40 C.
Tomatoes are not good for Russian tortoises. Cucumber is too low in nutritions.
Lambs lettuce and belgium endive are better food for a Russian tortoise, even Romane lettuce.

Marcus Harrison · Mar 19, 2018

Bee62 said:
Thank you for the pics but a actual one would be better. You often can see by the look of the eyes if a tort is sick or not.
It is also possible that she wants to brumate when it is too cold at night.
I would soak her every day in 39 C warm water and push up the temps a little bit.
Basking spot should be 40 C.
Tomatoes are not good for Russian tortoises. Cucumber is too low in nutritions.
Lambs lettuce and belgium endive are better food for a Russian tortoise, even Romane lettuce.

I’ve been researching the respiratory Illness and I’m seriously praying it isn’t that. She’s not yawning but she’s asleep a lot.. I’ll have to get a photo tomorrow when she’s up but that’s devastating if that’s what it is as it may have been going on a while. She’s lethargic but I do not notice anything different with her eyes she just sleeps a lot and she isn’t yawning

Marcus Harrison · Mar 20, 2018

Marcus Harrison said:
I’ve been researching the respiratory Illness and I’m seriously praying it isn’t that. She’s not yawning but she’s asleep a lot.. I’ll have to get a photo tomorrow when she’s up but that’s devastating if that’s what it is as it may have been going on a while. She’s lethargic but I do not notice anything different with her eyes she just sleeps a lot and she isn’t yawning

Marcus Harrison · Mar 20, 2018

Marcus Harrison said:
View attachment 233575 View attachment 233576

From what I’ve seen his night time temperatures seemed to be in the 60s

Marcus Harrison · Mar 20, 2018

Does she look okay guys?

Bee62 · Mar 20, 2018

Marcus Harrison said:
View attachment 233575 View attachment 233576

This pic is new ? She looks not sick.
Any strange noise while breathing or bubbles coming out of the nose ? I hope not.
Can you try to bump up your temps ? Day and night, and soak her daily in warm water ?

RosemaryDW · Mar 21, 2018

@Marcus Harrison, I’m not qualified to comment on the health of your tortoise. But since you are getting a lot of good questions about temperatures, you should get yourself one of these so you don’t have to guess. They aren’t expensive and you will feel more confident with one. This is from the Amazon UK site; they probably aren’t hard to find were you are.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01AT9T...a82a-d8715336470b&ie=UTF8&qid=1521656614&sr=3

Marcus Harrison · Mar 21, 2018

RosemaryDW said:
@Marcus Harrison, I’m not qualified to comment on the health of your tortoise. But since you are getting a lot of good questions about temperatures, you should get yourself one of these so you don’t have to guess. They aren’t expensive and you will feel more confident with one. This is from the Amazon UK site; they probably aren’t hard to find were you are.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01AT9T...a82a-d8715336470b&ie=UTF8&qid=1521656614&sr=3

Thankyou very much. I did an extensive clean out of the enclosure and let the tortoise have some more exercise. I gave the food this morning and she sat under the basking bulb and I went off to school. I left her some of her usual food and little bits of cucumber on top (I know they are not nutritious but she LOVES cucumber and I HAD to get her to eat SOMETHING) I came home a few hours later and every last cucumber was gone. But that’s not all, all of the leaves were gone too! She finally ate!! So happy about this and I know it doesn’t mean a lot but she cleared her bowl. Hopefully give her some energy. Maybe she was sulking that I had been slacking on the enclosure cleaning because I’m certain the temps don’t go below 60F because each time I have checked (at night when the lights have gone off and in the morning before they come on) it’s been mid-high 60s.

Bee62 · Mar 21, 2018

Marcus Harrison said:
Thankyou very much. I did an extensive clean out of the enclosure and let the tortoise have some more exercise. I gave the food this morning and she sat under the basking bulb and I went off to school. I left her some of her usual food and little bits of cucumber on top (I know they are not nutritious but she LOVES cucumber and I HAD to get her to eat SOMETHING) I came home a few hours later and every last cucumber was gone. But that’s not all, all of the leaves were gone too! She finally ate!! So happy about this and I know it doesn’t mean a lot but she cleared her bowl. Hopefully give her some energy. Maybe she was sulking that I had been slacking on the enclosure cleaning because I’m certain the temps don’t go below 60F because each time I have checked (at night when the lights have gone off and in the morning before they come on) it’s been mid-high 60s.

Good news that see ate. When it is too cold torts like Russians that will brumate in the wild slow down in capture too because they think it will be soon winter and they have to brumate.
When temps are higher and the tort gets yummy food they forget thinking about brumation.
Good luck that she keeps on eating well now.

Marcus Harrison · Mar 21, 2018

I might move her enclosure to my bedroom which is a much warmer room. The only issue is the digging noise lol. Going to get stocked up on cuttlebones, Russian friendly food and heat mats etc. Going to get her happy again. She ate cucumber yesterday but left the leaves but today she cleared the bowl so starting to get better I hope!

Bee62 · Mar 21, 2018

Marcus Harrison said:
I might move her enclosure to my bedroom which is a much warmer room. The only issue is the digging noise lol. Going to get stocked up on cuttlebones, Russian friendly food and heat mats etc. Going to get her happy again. She ate cucumber yesterday but left the leaves but today she cleared the bowl so starting to get better I hope!

Better than a heat mat would be a ceramic heat emitter for colder nights. They produce heat but no light. A tort needs warmth from above not from below like with a heat mat.
Do you know ceramic heat emitter bulbs ? With this heat source you can leave her in the other room and sleep well.

Not eating

Marcus Harrison

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