13 yr old leopard and 5 yr old hermann died within 10 days of each other?

Darren1965

New Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2018
Messages
12
Location (City and/or State)
Nottingham
I've seen plenty of examples of tortoises surviving for years in similar situations. We don't realize they are on the edge many times, but pull through. Just enough warmth comes along before it's too late, or it cooled down slow enough that they did not have too much food in the gut. This can happen for years. Then, one year, there is a warm spell and they eat a bit more than usual. followed by an extended cold spell where the sun doesn't even come out for 2 weeks or more and they never get a chance to warm up. A bulb in their night box goes out and its a few more days before it's realized. Food in the gut and extended cold with no chance to warm up is a recipe for this to happen.

Same thing will happen to a hibernating species if they don't prepare for hibernation properly. They are certainly capable of hibernating, but here, they are not hibernating, yet allowed to eat, stay awake, yet not provided enough heat to properly metabolize. So both leopard and hermans are in the same state.
Thank you for your reply. The scenario you suggest is the most likely explanation. I do wish I’d known much more about the specifics of their care and maybe we could have avoided this very sad occurrence. I think because they’d never displayed any outward signs that they’d struggled or only just made it through in previous years we were oblivious to their plight. And that had led to their deaths. You are right about a prolonged colder period over here. In previous years they have had the opportunity to warm up earlier.
This year there was an extended cold snap which prevented them from getting sun and, it would seem, was just too much for each of them to cope with. Knowing these things after the fact is too late for the tortoises and very difficult to know I have let them down.
 

Darren1965

New Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2018
Messages
12
Location (City and/or State)
Nottingham
So sorry to read about your loss. Please, if you do decide to get more tortoises, stick to the info on this forum for their care. I'm afraid your books led you wrong. My leopards living here in cold snowy Chicago slow a bit in winter on the amount of time they are awake and wandering but they still eat and drink daily. Also during winter they are still kept in 80 degrees and warmer.
Sure wish you had found us sooner. Not sure if our help would have been enough to keep them alive, but at least it would have been correct.
Again, very sorry. Stick around and read all the care info and maybe you will want to get a couple more.
Thank you very much for this information. At this stage I’m not considering having any more but I take note of your advice and info on your Leopards habits and how to compensate for the climate. Wishing I had all the best information from the start instead of relying on a couple of books and occasional advice from our local reptile centre was clearly not adequate. I just hope that this thread will remain and be of help to other inexperienced keepers and they can avoid this terribly upsetting experience happening to them
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Markw84

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
5,041
Location (City and/or State)
Sacramento, CA (Central Valley)
Thank you for your reply. The scenario you suggest is the most likely explanation. I do wish I’d known much more about the specifics of their care and maybe we could have avoided this very sad occurrence. I think because they’d never displayed any outward signs that they’d struggled or only just made it through in previous years we were oblivious to their plight. And that had led to their deaths. You are right about a prolonged colder period over here. In previous years they have had the opportunity to warm up earlier.
This year there was an extended cold snap which prevented them from getting sun and, it would seem, was just too much for each of them to cope with. Knowing these things after the fact is too late for the tortoises and very difficult to know I have let them down.

I am truly sorry for your loss and wish you my sincere condolences.

I do also really appreciate your forthright assessment and retrospect in trying to understand what happened. It certainly will not help your tortoise now, but it will help others who may read this. Just as you, so many keepers see the older, and misinterpreted information that is still so prevalent. There are just too many places where it is promoting the belief that tortoises are more "cold resistant". But they don't tell and understand the whole story. They see and overnight low "in their native range" but not understand the wonderful way tortoises are designed (flat bottom for greater earth contact area) and use the ground temperatures to mitigate overnight lows in their areas. And they live in areas where if there are lower overnight temps, the average temperature is way higher - which controls ground temps. The daily high reaches levels where the tortoise easily recovers in their native range as well. AND that overnight low is the exception, not the rule. An occasional low temperature is way different than weeks of that same temperature every night. So an overnight low in Zimbabwe, or India, or Madagascar, is nowhere near the same as the identical overnight low is here in N Calif for example.
 

TammyJ

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2016
Messages
7,119
Location (City and/or State)
Jamaica
This is such an awfully hard thing to have happened to an obviously very caring, trying and loving owner of these animals.
I am very sorry for your loss and pain.
What I think after reading through all the posts is that something affected both of them at the same time and so they both died from the same thing.
I was thinking the substrate - wood chips? What kind of wood? But you had straw for the other one, so...??? But poison of some kind does seem to be possible or likely.
Or it could be a real coincidence and the cause is totally different for each of them!
Thank you for caring for them and trying your best to give them a good life with you, which is a lot more than many other owners do.
 

creepy-crawler

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 27, 2017
Messages
44
Location (City and/or State)
SoCal
This sounds like gastro enteritis. It is unfortunately much more common than most people realize, because it often shows no symptoms first because the tortoise's metabolism has been slowed down so much.

Tortoises can survive conditions often for years, even though they are in conditions that CAN kill them. A leopard with a winter "slow down" is not good. A Herman's that was not properly prepared to hibernate is also in trouble. If you had an unusually cold spell, or longer cool spell with the conditions you described, the tortoises will have food in their gut that actually will start to rot and lead to infection when temperatures go down and they can not longer metabolize the stuff and get it through the gut. No visible outside signs as the infection builds inside. Tortoises have to be able to get their body temps to at least 28° and higher to metabolise. if there is no way to do that for several days in a row, you are always risking enteritis to begin.
i am with you, it was exactly what i thought, leopard should not hibernate, brumate at most but still has to be eating, i feared they either starved to death from too low of temps that did not get their metabolism going as they should, or they had food in their stomachs pre hibernation that rotted and killed them, so sorry, many people have no idea undigested food kills all the time...
 

creepy-crawler

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 27, 2017
Messages
44
Location (City and/or State)
SoCal
Thank you for your reply. I did not hibernate the Herman’s as I was told by our reptile centre it wasn’t necessary. He stayed awake all year
was the herman eating everyday as he should? they eat everyday when not hibernating, was he eating until the end, or stopped, when?
 
Top