93 Degrees

[Balboa]

For a long time I just made due with setting environmental temps with normal thermometers, and letting the torts self-regulate.

Somewhat recently I finally got a temp gun, wish I'd done that sooner, SOOO handy.

As I started monitoring the torts' shell surface I noticed a trend.

Rocky was maintaining herself at 90+ throughout the day.
Adrienne maintained herself at 80+
-hmmmm not good me thinks

But Adrienne has steadily improved. She still doesn't spend all day wandering like Rocky (literally, Rocky doesn't hardly stop moving, gogogo all day long, its crazy), but Adrienne does get up and wander some now too, and utilizes the bask some.

So I noticed both wandering around at the same time, and checked both temps.

They both measured 93 degrees!

The point of this post is that I've never really seen mention of what a redfoot's temp will typically be.

Have any of the rest of you noticed a typical temp? does it happen to be 93 degrees?

 

[onarock]

Interesting Balboa. I like where your going with this

 

[Madkins007]

My guys shell temps are all over the board. It would take some time to try to correlate it to what they are doing and to try to isolate the desired temps from the constraints of where the food, water, etc. are.

Interesting observation.

 

[LindaF]

If you don't mind me asking what brand of temp gun did you get and where did you get it from? I've been thinking of getting one. Just another thing I am obsessed about. I have two probe temp gages, one hygrometer, and two of those useless dial ones from the pet store. I know my little guy would appreciate a temp gun instead of me reaching into the hide and putting a probe on his back

 

[terryo]

My small one..6 months old...will come out to eat and then spend the rest of the day on top of her hide that I have a lot of moss on. The temp. there is always a little higher, and with the temp. gun it registers 88 89. In the afternoon she will come down and finish her food and go in her hide which is 82 with the gun. She will walk to the other side of her viv and sit under a plant for a while. The whold viv is around 85 -87, with the hide being lower at 82, and the top of the hide 89.
The big one...he's 3...spends his day searching for food, and eating every plant I put in there. Only goes in his hide in the late afternoon and stays there until the next morning. His whole viv stays in the high 80's range...87-88 and inside his hide is 82 with the temp. gun.
I never did the shell surface, but will try that tomorrow when they come out.

This is the one that I have. I want to get another one that gives you the humidity.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009O1G5K/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

 

[Balboa]

Thanks for the input folks!

Linda, I picked up a cheap Ryobi one from Home Depot, it was $30, in the tape measure section as I recall.

I love the idea of one with Humidity Terry!

Ona... where am I going with this?

LOL actually I've had a few thoughts.

At a glance of course it looks like 93 is the ideal temperature for an active redfoot.

-"Depression" in a tortoise may be the result of attempting to brumate, from having no easy way to achieve that optimum temp. They're waiting for better weather. As redfoots are not a brumating species in nature, it could make the physiological changes that come with "unnatural" brumation tough to pull out of.

-It takes work to maintain that temp, either through frequent basking, or activity. Even though they lack the warm blooded creatures ability to make heat sitting still, cold blooded critters can still heat themselves up through activity. If food of sufficient quality is not plentiful, they may seek to slow themselves down and brumate or aestivate in an effort to conserve energy despite adequate temps being available.

-Is this a "universal" temp for torts, or species specific to redfoots?

-what then is the ideal rest temp?

-will "forcing" an inactive tort to 90 bring about greater activity levels. Seems dangerous, but I did play around with different temps during Adrienne's recovery stage. I saw the greatest improvement by keeping her hide at 90 for a length of time, but then later reducing that temp didn't seem to encourage her to leave the hide more often in an effort to raise her temp on her own. It wasn't until she was switched to the larger enclosure that I really saw great activity improvement. The "forced" 90 (she was able to escape it to a cool hide any time she wanted) seemed critical more to "healing". The higher temps likely helped with raising her metabolism, improving her appetite, and assisting better digestion to better utilize her food.


Tonight, Rocky's measuring 94. Still close, but making me wonder if both measuring 93 exactly was just a coincidence.

In any case, this is a significantly higher temperature than ambient in the enclosure, which is around 84 degrees right now.

 

[onarock]

There