Still a bit at a loss about Farishta….
Hi everyone,
Although Farishta has been eating somewhat normally recently, I am still not convinced that all is well….
Here are a couple pix of her current digs:
It's like this now minus the bark which I took out:
The lighting:
The substrate is now one bag of play sand mixed with two bricks of bed-a-beast + one bag of aspen shavings (about equal in volume to one brick of BaB after being soaked in water). This gives her at least 4 – 5†of depth to dig into.
Temp in the cooler part of the enclosure is around 70F with the area under the ceramic heating unit and under the red heated night light around 110F in both places.
While I had some time off from my day job during the New Year’s holiday I started a routine of bathing her and then taking her out for a walk around midday for five days. The rest of the time she just sleeps and doesn’t even go in her pool anymore (or throw her food in it). Is there such a thing as “semi-hibernation mode�
Since the establishment of this routine she has relieved herself each time I bathe her, and if the weather is nice she walks or “runs†around the yard quite vigorously for at least half an hour or longer, and does some grazing on the portulacas but won’t touch the grass, dandelions or hibiscus leaves and flowers, other weeds, etc., that are also there. She sometimes eats dirt and especially seeks out the white fertilizer or aeration bits in it, which worries me.
When I return her to her indoor enclosure she hangs out for a moment under the heat light, and then goes straight back to bed in the corner and doesn’t stir until I wake her up the next day to repeat the routine. Does this sound ok???
It occurred to me that the Repti-Sun 10 UVB bulb I have over her enclosure does not make it bright like daylight, and in fact the lighting in her enclosure for most of the day looks like a twilight zone to me. Could this be the reason for her extreme sleepiness? Should I add another light to make it brighter?
Thanks as always for pearls of wisdom!
-Brenda K
P.S. I’m really glad I changed her substrate because today when she had her bath and did her business, she pooped out a pea-sized bit of gravel from her erstwhile substrate! I sure hope that was the only piece she swallowed!!
Hi everyone,
Although Farishta has been eating somewhat normally recently, I am still not convinced that all is well….
Here are a couple pix of her current digs:
It's like this now minus the bark which I took out:
The lighting:
The substrate is now one bag of play sand mixed with two bricks of bed-a-beast + one bag of aspen shavings (about equal in volume to one brick of BaB after being soaked in water). This gives her at least 4 – 5†of depth to dig into.
Temp in the cooler part of the enclosure is around 70F with the area under the ceramic heating unit and under the red heated night light around 110F in both places.
While I had some time off from my day job during the New Year’s holiday I started a routine of bathing her and then taking her out for a walk around midday for five days. The rest of the time she just sleeps and doesn’t even go in her pool anymore (or throw her food in it). Is there such a thing as “semi-hibernation mode�
Since the establishment of this routine she has relieved herself each time I bathe her, and if the weather is nice she walks or “runs†around the yard quite vigorously for at least half an hour or longer, and does some grazing on the portulacas but won’t touch the grass, dandelions or hibiscus leaves and flowers, other weeds, etc., that are also there. She sometimes eats dirt and especially seeks out the white fertilizer or aeration bits in it, which worries me.
When I return her to her indoor enclosure she hangs out for a moment under the heat light, and then goes straight back to bed in the corner and doesn’t stir until I wake her up the next day to repeat the routine. Does this sound ok???
It occurred to me that the Repti-Sun 10 UVB bulb I have over her enclosure does not make it bright like daylight, and in fact the lighting in her enclosure for most of the day looks like a twilight zone to me. Could this be the reason for her extreme sleepiness? Should I add another light to make it brighter?
Thanks as always for pearls of wisdom!
-Brenda K
P.S. I’m really glad I changed her substrate because today when she had her bath and did her business, she pooped out a pea-sized bit of gravel from her erstwhile substrate! I sure hope that was the only piece she swallowed!!