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Hello and welcome. Why kind of Burmese? Star or mountain tortoise? Here is a breakdown of the four heating and lighting essentials: Basking bulb. I use 65 watt incandescent floods from the hardware store. Some people will need bigger, or smaller wattage bulbs. Let your thermometer be your...

That works. That's how Mark W likes to do it too on his Smart Enclosures. CHEs are for ambient heat, not basking. You need light for a basking bulb.

Congrats on the new addition! That's awesome. Here is what I'd change: -Most of this sounds great, but I prefer my basking lamp on a timer, not a thermostat. I don't want the "sun" going on and off all day. I have a friend that did this with her uromastix and it was driving me crazy from across...

Where in CA are you? Different advice for Palm Springs VS. Pismo Beach. What are the temperatures in the indoor enclosure? Basking area, cool side, warm side, and overnight low? What other lighting and heating do you have other than the heat lamp? Stop offering fruit. It wreaks havoc on their...

Yes. I've been running several of them for years.

Here are a few things I see: 1. Not having a water bowl for a few days would not kill them. It was most likely the heat. Hydration is vitally important for long term health, but this species can survive a few days with a dry water bowl if all else is done correctly. 2. When housed outdoors in...

UV levels in the UK are lower than here, but have you tried it outside, mid day in summer time? You should be able to look up online what is normal this time of year for your area.

Both are great species and both have the same care requirements. Marginated just get a little bit larger. Hermani are way more common and available, so finding a breeder who starts them correctly might be easier.

I agree those readings are okay, but they seem very low for 12% or a 14%. I wonder if your meter is off. I prefer Arcadia. I think their stuff is better quality. I wonder if another keeper or reptile shop near you is running an Arcadia HO tube that you could test your meter under?

Hello and welcome! What you are feeding him is ideal, but he has probably never seen any of that and has no idea what it is. New foods have to be introduced gradually over weeks or months. Check in with the seller and see what he was eating before. Probably lettuce. Mix in small amounts of...

Procuring enough food to feed my ever-growing herd is my biggest challenge. Closely followed by having to put them all away every night into their night boxes when the weather is hot. Your questions; 1. I leave them unattended every night while I'm sleeping and they are in their boxes. I don't...

The UV does not need to blanket the entire enclosure. Just an area near the basking lamp is all that is needed. LED for the rest of the enclosure is great.

I thought wandering jew was toxic, but I could be mistaken. Yes, if it's safe for a DT, it's also safe for a sulcata. Grasses and grass hay are best, but also look for lavatera, grape vines, mulberry leaves, and lots of spineless opuntia.

Yes, you are doing him a huge disservice by letting him in. The floor of the house is not safe, cannot be made safe, and no amount of supervision changes this. We see tragedy after tragedy as a result of people letting them roam free in the house. Nobody realizes how dangerous it is, or how many...

They aren't stressed. They are just marching. Much like a horse, tortoises rely on locomotion to keep the GI tract moving along. Think of the soaks like a hot walker for horses. Years ago @Yvonne G used the phrase "tortoise treadmill". It really does fit. While soaking for 45 minutes, your...

All of this sounds ideal. Longer soaks are better, as the mountain lady pointed out, but with two soaks a day, dehydration, constipation, and bladder stones can reasonably be ruled out. As an experiment, try switching back to the original diet with half romaine, before you added in the new...

My tortoises are the forces of destruction mentioned in the video...

Upland has great tortoise weather for DTs! The heat shouldn't matter indoors. I'm trying to see a reason for the reduced appetite. How often do you soak them? What sort of heating, lighting and UV are you using indoors? What are your temperatures indoors? What substrate are you using? Outside...

First: Are they housed separately? If the tortoise is grazing naturally, and with your huge variety of good stuff, you really don't need and supplementation. A tiny pinch of calcium now and then certainly won't hurt anything, but if they are eating a variety of weeds and all of those...

In addition to what Zovick said, this problem usually indicates poor care, incorrect hosing, and wrong diet. Just something to be aware of.