I do not use CHE's for heat as I have my enclosures in a radiant heated room so I can't speak to that too much other than to guess that the RH directly under the CHE's (where your tortoise might like to hang out) is considerably lower than the 70 to 90% you mention above. In my hatchling...
Hi Dave
1) - right - no air circulation needed - in a closed chamber, circulation of outside air defeats the purpose and vents the humidity and heat. My design is not air tight - there are gaps in the door glass that let plenty of air in....but not enough to disallow good humidity and...
Agreed - it would be an exceptionally extreme case likely caused by some unusual condition or circumstance. An order of magnitude worse than the pictures I uploaded.
Did you see this injury before she laid the egg or after? I have a large Chersina female that, after laying her first egg, had similar, but far less extreme bleeding along that same line. Now, it was NOWHERE near as bad - but was bleeding. Chersina's shells have to flex quite a bit to allow...
I've soaked many, many babies and some poop in the water and some don't. If you only soak for 15 or 20 minutes, they don't usually. If you soak them longer, you will find they poop more often. I wouldn't worry about it either way.
Interesting to consider natural selection as well. Perhaps in the wild, super colorful babies are easier to spot and therefore are predated more than the less colorful babies - thereby leading to a less colorful community.
That was St. Catherines Island and @zovick was very active with the Bronx Zoo (WCS) and St. Catherines back then. If anyone will have details it will be him!
I specifically say Upstate NY because this is a large enclosure and would require a small trailer to move.
This is a large closed chamber I made a number of for my colony of Bowsprits. They work great. I am consolidating things into a room and I no longer need this enclosure .
It is 8' long...
unfortunately I have not been able to get in touch with the vendor in a while. Its Neodesha plastics. You can try. If you get in touch with them, refer to them as the "Zovickian" black custom tortoise tubs. Then he will know what you mean. They are 4' by 6' and are 18" deep.