Rock eating behavior is typically seen when they are fed a lots of grocery store greens. What are you feeding the tortoise?
They should get a tiny pinch of calcium twice a week for most cases.
They don't pee out calcium. The white stuff you are seeing is urates. Urates are the product of...
That is perlite. It is deadly to tortoises. It takes a long time to kill them. It crumbles and lines their intestinal tract and doesn't move through.
Please read this. It has the correct substrate and care info:
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/info-for-new-people-please-read-this-first.202363/
That is pretty normal, but you will likely see improvement in that with the heated shelter. Control of the temperature, regardless of the weather outside the box, allows you to wind her down for brumation more safely and reliably. You can keep it warm enough as you are clearing all the food from...
In the wild, the tortoise would seek shelter under a bush, or some species utilize burrows. There are no lights there, but just like in your tortoise house, they can see that it is sunny and daytime. They position themselves in or out of the sun to warm or cool. Your tortoise house simulates the...
Its good that you posted pictures. We can see several major problems there. The following is intended to help:
1. That dry substrate is no good. It is likely causing or contributing to your problem. The open top enclosure makes it even worse. Much too dry.
2. The enclosure is MUCH too small. A...
You don't need ambient light or UV for an outdoor house. You need ambient heat to keep the temperature from dropping too low on cold days or nights, and you need a basking lamp for days when the weather just isn't cooperating.
I don't think a heat mat on the ceiling will do it, but your...
Managing populations of wild animals and wild land almost always results in healthier animals and a healthier environment compared to the "hands off" approach.
I like alligators too. I work with them several times a year and have raised a couple of them.
No these are not good. Some of them are unsafe even, though I don't know this particular brand.
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...
That is exactly what happened in Louisiana. They banned all legal hunting and of course poaching, and the alligator numbers continued to decline. They got down to around 6000 left in the wild, and they were quickly headed toward extinction. This was back in the 60s. Somebody intelligent in the...
Hello and welcome Jackie.
We love tortoises here and always want to help them. Please give this thread a read through. It is for people new to the forum, not necessarily new to tortoises:
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/info-for-new-people-please-read-this-first.202363/
There are many types. Some need to be 30 inches away, and others can be 18 inches away.
With any of them, the UV output varies from the factory, with the fixture, and with the type of reflector. The only way to KNOW for certain how high to mount your bulb is to put a Solarmeter 6.5 under it...
I wouldn't yet.
Overgrown nails and beaks indicate a husbandry problem. Could be diet, temperatures, UV, calcium, enclosures size, etc... Take a look at this thread and read through the temperate species care sheet near the bottom to see what you might need to adjust. Most of the care info...
What makes you say this? I toured an alligator farming facility in Louisiana and those animals were all healthy and well cared for. They grew them to four feet in 12 months. An unhealthy animal wouldn't have a growth rate like that. Did you see a facility that wasn't working well somewhere?