Tortoise sleeping all day

Kapidolo Farms said:

The beak looks fine, maybe the pictures are from after the Vet visit?

This may sound strange as an explanation - and I applaud your interest to make life better for your tortoise, but all the changes can bring about a depression of sorts. I would not change back, your enclosure is good. So it's waiting the tortoise out and keep assisting it in finding food.

Imagine you live in a town, and there are no street signs, store signs, no one to ask, and no place you see a map with a legend. But over time you make a map of where everything is in your mind. This mapping is our best understanding of how tortoises know to navigate their world. When the map changes (move to a new town) it can be depressing. So your showing the tortoise where the food is daily and where the drinking water is, etc, is helping it build a new map.

You are doing exactly the right thing with helping the tortoise make a new map.

I have acclimated many kinds of wild caught tortoises into captivity, and this perspective, helping them learn a new map, is what I do.

Good job, keep at it.

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Orlaith said:

Hi everyone,
I live in Ireland with my tortoise Herbie. I've had him for 8 years and a couple of months ago I discovered this forum and I've since used the information available to try and improve his life. He was previously living in a plastic storage box with a substrate of reptile sand and Aspen snake bedding and a uv tube bulb. He now has a wooden 6ft x 4ft tortoise table built with the help of my dad. The substrate is eco Earth (Coco coir?). For lighting he has his uv bulb (24" 18 watt) and I also purchased a heat lamp for him with a 150 watt exo Terra intense basking spot bulb. The temperatures are as follows: hot end = 85-90, cool end = 70-75, basking spot = 96 - 105. Diet consisted mainly of dandelion weeds from the garden, some lambs lettuce sometimes, kale and he was having broccoli for awhile until I discovered that it can affect calcium absorption. Now I have some salad mix which has radicchio, frisee, lollo Rosso and escarole lettuce, he also gets some zoo med grassland tortoise food, dandelion (flowers +weeds) and kale.

I moved him into the tortoise table on the 22nd Feb this year, since then I have found that he just wants to sleep all the time. I was leaving food out for him before I went to work so he could eat during the day when I wasn't there but then I noticed that the food was not being touched and I never saw him in the evenings either so I concluded that he wasn't actually waking up at all. So then I started waking him in the mornings to try and persuade him to eat and he still wasn't eating and then I started hand feeding him and then he would eat for me, mainly dandelion weeds, bits of kale and once he ate the zoo med food.
I read that their beaks can get overgrown and Herbie had been eating off a plastic plate the last 8 years so I booked an appointment with the nearest exotics vet. She thought that maybe the reason he wasn't eating was because of calcium and she also attributed the overgrown beak to lack of calcium, back in September/October when reading on this forum I saw that leaving a cuttlefish bone available could be used for calcium so I left that for him but I'm not sure that he ever had any of it, previously I had given him calcium powder. So the vet trimmed his beak, suggested using calcium powder again and I bought some off her. She also thought that I needed a heat source at night and suggested I get a heat mat. She also thought my temperatures at the hot end were a bit too cold but that the heat mat might boost them up a bit and to adjust the heat lamp a bit more to get hotter temperatures. She also suggested that until he was a bit healthier to give him a 10 minute soak each day. And she thought he might be a girl? I took her advice and made the suggested changes.

It has only been a week since the vet appointment but I just thought I'd ask for a few opinions on here as well, just because I've been worrying about him. For a few days he would eat the radicchio on his own and the dandelion flowers but they were the only parts of the food he would eat. But then on Tuesday he didn't eat anything again so yesterday I woke him and put a dandelion + calcium powder under his heat lamp (there are loads of dandelions around here at the moment) and he ate that so I just kept giving them to him to see how many he'd eat and he ate about 10 of them and then went back to sleep. I've also started soaking him under his uv bulb because he's been sleeping so much I don't think he could possibly be getting enough uvb and after his soaks he is usually fairly active, and often eats (not since Tuesday). His daily pattern has been me waking him up, soaking him under his uv, putting him under his basking spot to dry off and then he may or may not eat and then straight away he goes into his hide or buries himself. Is it too dark for him in the tortoise table? Not warm enough? Is he sick? I am welcome to any suggestions for improvements for my little guy. See attached photos of setup and of Herbie himself, all plants are fake and the black stuff around my tortoise table is just pond liner. Thanks in advance.
View attachment 270176View attachment 270177View attachment 270178View attachment 270179

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Kapidolo Farms said:

The beak looks fine, maybe the pictures are from after the Vet visit?

This may sound strange as an explanation - and I applaud your interest to make life better for your tortoise, but all the changes can bring about a depression of sorts. I would not change back, your enclosure is good. So it's waiting the tortoise out and keep assisting it in finding food.

Imagine you live in a town, and there are no street signs, store signs, no one to ask, and no place you see a map with a legend. But over time you make a map of where everything is in your mind. This mapping is our best understanding of how tortoises know to navigate their world. When the map changes (move to a new town) it can be depressing. So your showing the tortoise where the food is daily and where the drinking water is, etc, is helping it build a new map.

You are doing exactly the right thing with helping the tortoise make a new map.

I have acclimated many kinds of wild caught tortoises into captivity, and this perspective, helping them learn a new map, is what I do.

Good job, keep at it.

Click to expand...

Lyn W said:

Hi to you and Herbie!
My tort has days like this when he won't come out of his hide, not even for his favourite foods and even though his temps are fine. I can't explain it either.
My tort will also ignore his cuttlebone for weeks and weeks and then he will have a little nibble, so I use a pinch of calcium powder a few times a week. Some members scrape the cuttlebone onto the food instead of powder. I also use Nutrabal a couple of times a week too, or instead of the calcium. A piece of slate would be a better plate for him, I bought some that was supposed to be an unframed hanging chalkboard from The Range - it was only about £2 and I removed the string, or you could use a terracotta plant saucer.
I'm not sure but I think I've read that heat mats that are sold for reptiles aren't generally recommended for torts, especially under substate. Many US members have Kane heated mats and these are often attached to a wall rather than on the floor, but those aren't available in GB - you may have more luck in Ireland.
I use a ceramic heat emitter (CHE) for night heat which I run through a thermostat to keep temps even, but my tort is a leopard and needs higher temps.
Is Herbie a Russian/Horsefield tort? I'm not very good at IDing them.

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lilly_sand99 said:

Kapidolo Farms, do you think if he put the old enclosure(with a hole cut in the side) into the new one enclosure would help? And place food, water, and all the good stuff in the new enclosure?

I did this with my baby moving from his tote to his table, and he had no problem adjusting. Then after he got use to the bigger enclosure I removed the tote all together

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ascott said:

I am also thinking that while you have offered a great space...you may need to offer some cover so that the warmth and temps can regulate to stable a bit....I also know too that any change is a huge issue for "most" tortoise...so if you are in week one or two then be patient...what night heat are you offering...I mean this species "typically" is not a fuss with cooler temps but if it has come from a space that use to be more regulated and now there is much more unregulated space...this may make a difference.

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lilly_sand99 said:

Kapidolo Farms, do you think if he put the old enclosure(with a hole cut in the side) into the new one enclosure would help? And place food, water, and all the good stuff in the new enclosure?

I did this with my baby moving from his tote to his table, and he had no problem adjusting. Then after he got use to the bigger enclosure I removed the tote all together

Click to expand...

lilly_sand99 said:

Kapidolo Farms, do you think if he put the old enclosure(with a hole cut in the side) into the new one enclosure would help? And place food, water, and all the good stuff in the new enclosure?

I did this with my baby moving from his tote to his table, and he had no problem adjusting. Then after he got use to the bigger enclosure I removed the tote all together

Click to expand...