Normal behavior?

Sunshine82 · Jan 17, 2019

Hi All,
I'm a new to all this and have a few questions. I purchased a leopard tortoise hatchling from a pet store just before Thanksgiving. They told me she was about three weeks old then. I've assumed she is female for now. Her name is Littlefoot.
When I first brought her home she seemed to be more active. Now she barely moves from her spot and sleeps all day. Her eyes are shut most of the time. She goes to her food but falls asleep when she gets there.
I took her to a vet yesterday and she had xrays and a fecal exam. They were not able to obtain a blood sample to check for infection. They were not able to find much. I was told she had parasites pinworm and another parasite (oxyurids and nyctotherus ) They also found a moderate amount of gas and some inflammation.
They treated her with metronidazole and fenbendazole and also Plasmalyte.
Today she seemed eager to eat her food. I checked on her in the afternoon and made sure she took a drink of water .She ate a little more and fell asleep by her food and hasn't moved for the rest of the day.
My question is this How much energy / activity can I expect from such a young tortoise. Is this normal?
I'm supposed to call the vet back tomorrow. They may consider giving her an antibiotic if she doesn't improve.
I don't want to be a hypochondriac tortoise owner . though
Thanks in advance

Sunshine82 · Jan 17, 2019

Sunshine82 said:
Hi All,
I'm a new to all this and have a few questions. I purchased a leopard tortoise hatchling from a pet store just before Thanksgiving. They told me she was about three weeks old then. I've assumed she is female for now. Her name is Littlefoot.
When I first brought her home she seemed to be more active. Now she barely moves from her spot and sleeps all day. Her eyes are shut most of the time. She goes to her food but falls asleep when she gets there.
I took her to a vet yesterday and she had xrays and a fecal exam. They were not able to obtain a blood sample to check for infection. They were not able to find much. I was told she had parasites pinworm and another parasite (oxyurids and nyctotherus ) They also found a moderate amount of gas and some inflammation.
They treated her with metronidazole and fenbendazole and also Plasmalyte.
Today she seemed eager to eat her food. I checked on her in the afternoon and made sure she took a drink of water .She ate a little more and fell asleep by her food and hasn't moved for the rest of the day.
My question is this How much energy / activity can I expect from such a young tortoise. Is this normal?
I'm supposed to call the vet back tomorrow. They may consider giving her an antibiotic if she doesn't improve.
I don't want to be a hypochondriac tortoise owner . though
Thanks in advance

Also I've been doing daily soaks. I've tried carrot soaks. When she is in her bath she seems perky. Holds her head and eyes open. When she returns to her tank she settles in and falls asleep.

TriciaStringer · Jan 17, 2019

Sleeping too much and not eating is usually because they are not warm enough. Please post pictures of your enclosure so we can help you solve any issues.

TriciaStringer · Jan 17, 2019

https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-raise-a-healthy-sulcata-or-leopard-version-2-0.78361/

Give this a read. It will help.

Sunshine82 · Jan 17, 2019

Sunshine82 · Jan 17, 2019

It’s only 18 x 24 to start
I’m having a hard time with the humidity so I started small
I was afraid to get a plastic tote for fear it might melt with the heat lamps
I have a basking light and an Arcadia 12% for UV

Sunshine82 · Jan 17, 2019

I placed the long bulb under the screen so none of it would be blocked

Chasen · Jan 17, 2019

You've come to the right place. Have a read on the care sheets provided on this forum, make sure your humidity and temps are where they should be, basking spot is provided and you're giving daily soaks. The experienced members here will provide you with much more in depth advice. I purchased a hatchling at an expo in July and he was just never as vigorous as I thought she should be. After finding this forum I discovered the proper husbandry for the little ones and realized mine hadn't had the right start in life. I got everything in order and just made him as good a life as I could. Right about the time that I had resigned myself to the inevitable, I was given a suggestion to do carrot soaks. It was the miracle cure my youngster needed. He turned a corner and is now thriving. I don't know if it's the miracle for your Littlefoot, but I can't imagine it will do any harm. Good luck and hope he pulls thru.

LaLaP · Jan 17, 2019

Welcome!

Here is the caresheet Chasen mentioned. Is says Sulcata tortoise but the care is the same.
It sounds like something is wrong so check your temps and humidity against the caresheet. Soak her often. Post pics of your setup and we can trouble shoot for you.

I love her name. Is it from the Land Before Time? I loved that movie!

TriciaStringer · Jan 18, 2019

You’ll need to make it a closed chamber to hold in the heat and humidity. You can do that with aluminum foil. Wrapping the light domes in aluminum foil is also what keeps them from melting the plastic on the tote. Also, those gauges you have aren’t accurate. Get a digital thermometer and hygrometer. You need to know the temp under your basking bulb. A point and shoot thermometer gun is best to check the temps for that. In order for your tortoise to digest food, he needs to be able to warm up. It needs to be about 100° under the basking bulb. The temperature in the whole enclosure needs to be no less than 80° at all times.
Good job on the UV. You have a good one and you’re right about mounting it under the screen. Soaking is very important too so keep doing that everyday for at least 30 minutes. Make sure to keep changing out the water to keep it warm.
Please read the article I linked for you.
I’m going to tag @Tom so he can help. He raises leopards.

Maro2Bear · Jan 18, 2019

Greetings.

I can’t quite determine how you are maintaining overnight temperatures? I read you have a basking light, good, but no reference to any other heating source attached to a thermostat to maintain a solid 80 F ambient throughout the day and night.

Info from the care sheet:

Heating and Lighting:
Use a 65 watt incandescent flood bulb on a 12 hour timer and adjust the height of the fixture to get a hot spot of around 100 directly under the bulb. Then use a ceramic heating element set to 80 degrees on a reptile thermostat to maintain ambient temperature in the enclosure. Sometimes the basking lamp raises the day time ambient into the low 90s. "Ambient should be no lower than 80, but drifting up to 90 during the heat of the day is good…" This is fine and the thermostat will keep your CHE off during these times, but ready to click on after the basking lamp clicks off and the ambient temperature starts to drop at night. I use long florescent tubes when I want to brighten up the whole enclosure and I run these on the same timer as the basking bulb. The above are just what works for me and are suggestions for what might work for you. Every enclosure and home is different, and some customization will usually be necessary to get things "just right".

Best of luck n Happy Torting

Chasen · Jan 18, 2019

LaLaP said:
Welcome!

Here is the caresheet Chasen mentioned. Is says Sulcata tortoise but the care is the same.
It sounds like something is wrong so check your temps and humidity against the caresheet. Soak her often. Post pics of your setup and we can trouble shoot for you.

I love her name. Is it from the Land Before Time? I loved that movie!

Did you mean to post a link? I'm so tech challenged that I don't know how to do it, but I figured others in the know would..

Yvonne G · Jan 18, 2019

I can't know for sure from reading a story and looking at pictures, but my GUESS is that the tortoise isn't warm enough. I've had good luck with this type of temperature reader:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Greenpro...hguid=ef7bc5e4-661-168619d6d929a4&athena=true

You want your baby's WHOLE enclosure to be in the 80-85F range down at baby level.

You asked if it were normal. To answer the question, I'll tell you what my baby leopard does. The light (on a timer) comes on at 6a. The baby comes out of his cave and sits under the light. I put down the food at this time. After he's sat under the light for a half hour or so, he wanders over to the food and eats his fill. There's still a lot of food left when he's finished. Then he wanders back over to the light and sits there for another few minutes before going back into the cave. Throughout the day he repeats this process until, at the end of the day, all the food is gone.

LaLaP · Jan 18, 2019

Chasen said:
Did you mean to post a link? I'm so tech challenged that I don't know how to do it, but I figured others in the know would..

Oops I did mean too. Glad someone else got to it!

Tom · Jan 18, 2019

I see two main possibilities:

Improper set up. I see one fixture there. What is in it? You need something to maintain ambient heat day and night, a daytime basking lamp, a UV lamp and sometimes additional light just for brightness. What ever is in that fixture, you are still missing the other elements.
Most breeders start babies of this species all wrong and much too dry. Its sad, but true. I'd say most of them from most breeders don't survive. Here is more explanation on that: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/hatchling-failure-syndrome.23493/. One clue is that this breeder sold this baby to a novice tortoise keeper at only three weeks old. This tells me about their mindset and experience level. I hold babies for at least 6 weeks in most cases, and I won't sell them unless I'm seeing every indication of health and growth. At only 3 weeks, a breeder really can't be sure yet. I will only sell them to very experienced tortoise keepers that I personally know when they are under one month old.

More bad news: Most vets have no idea what they are doing with a tortoise. All that stuff they did is probably going to kill this baby. Babies can't handle all that stuff, even when they are healthy. The vet didn't seem to understand what was wrong and treated things that are not the issue.

Once we see the answers to these questions, we can narrow down the focus and hopefully figure this out.

Chasen · Jan 18, 2019

Yvonne G said:
I can't know for sure from reading a story and looking at pictures, but my GUESS is that the tortoise isn't warm enough. I've had good luck with this type of temperature reader:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Greenpro...hguid=ef7bc5e4-661-168619d6d929a4&athena=true

You want your baby's WHOLE enclosure to be in the 80-85F range down at baby level.

You asked if it were normal. To answer the question, I'll tell you what my baby leopard does. The light (on a timer) comes on at 6a. The baby comes out of his cave and sits under the light. I put down the food at this time. After he's sat under the light for a half hour or so, he wanders over to the food and eats his fill. There's still a lot of food left when he's finished. Then he wanders back over to the light and sits there for another few minutes before going back into the cave. Throughout the day he repeats this process until, at the end of the day, all the food is gone.

Mine is the same routine at 630. I like to do my soak after he comes to warm under the basking bulb. Soon as I set him back down he's motoring to the chow pile. LOL

Sunshine82 · Jan 19, 2019

TriciaStringer said:
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-raise-a-healthy-sulcata-or-leopard-version-2-0.78361/

Give this a read. It will help.

Thanks for the info Tricia. It was very helpful. I will make the necessary adjustments.

Sunshine82 · Jan 19, 2019

Chasen said:
You've come to the right place. Have a read on the care sheets provided on this forum, make sure your humidity and temps are where they should be, basking spot is provided and you're giving daily soaks. The experienced members here will provide you with much more in depth advice. I purchased a hatchling at an expo in July and he was just never as vigorous as I thought she should be. After finding this forum I discovered the proper husbandry for the little ones and realized mine hadn't had the right start in life. I got everything in order and just made him as good a life as I could. Right about the time that I had resigned myself to the inevitable, I was given a suggestion to do carrot soaks. It was the miracle cure my youngster needed. He turned a corner and is now thriving. I don't know if it's the miracle for your Littlefoot, but I can't imagine it will do any harm. Good luck and hope he pulls thru.

Thanks Chasen

Littlefoot has shown some improvement in the last few days. She is more active and responsive and is eating more.
I don't know if it will be enough but I'll take it as a good sign for now.

Sunshine82 · Jan 19, 2019

Chasen said:
Mine is the same routine at 630. I like to do my soak after he comes to warm under the basking bulb. Soon as I set him back down he's motoring to the chow pile. LOL

I have a similar routine. I soak her in the morning while I'm getting ready for work. Usually as soon as I put her in her enclosure she goes right for the food.

Sunshine82 · Jan 19, 2019

Chasen said:
Did you mean to post a link? I'm so tech challenged that I don't know how to do it, but I figured others in the know would..

LOL I'm tech challenged too

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