Re-printed from a different tortoise group, by Don Williams:
Sitting here looking at a baby desert tortoise that I picked up from Mojave
last evening.
Was found on K St. there about a month ago, the **** who found it contacted
me for permit application.
I tried via seven!!!! e-mails to get them to understand that they could not
put it in an aquarium, with only a heat lamp, no thermometer, no
microclimate, feeding "broccoli, carrots and lettuce tomatos and rarely some
watermelon dandielions and mustard greens too" and taking it out onto the
grass a couple of times a week there in the apartment complex they lived in
and allowing it to wander the grass and flowerbed (where the management
assures me they spray weekly - denied by the **** I got the tortoise from -
for bugs and weed killer for the grass.
Original photo of the little baby tort was a beautiful healthy baby, bright
eyes, wonderful coloration.
What I picked up was a jello cube, so soft I can't pick it up normally or
the sides collapse in.
No beautiful dark/light coloration left, just a dull gray with the top
vertebral scutes and the four on the sides of them a dark black looking
opaque set of scutes. So weak and skinny it only laid in the box for me
until late this afternoon, eating with great difficulty as if taking all
it's energy to try to bite off small pieces of grape leave and cut up
bermuda grass.
I did get it to finally eat some dried older tortoise scat, which it chose
over other items of graze, telling me it "KNOWS" it needs some friendly
bacteria to try to heal itself.
I don't hold out a lot of hope for it but have had a couple of these that
are in the process of eating up their bone trying to buffer toxins in their
blood pull out of it and can only hope.
This is coming on hatchling time, so please, everyone, if you hear of anyone
finding baby desert torts or having them hatch in their yard, try your best
to get them to understand that they need:
Sunshine for UVB, but also lots of shade to escape that heat, dappled
sunshine works
Burrows for the life saving moisture retaining microclimate with protection
from all predators
Natural graze foods of grasses/weeds/leaves with flowers as treats only
NO cabbage, broccoli, kale, spinach, fruits and no heat radiating glass
aquariums
NO calcium sands or pure sands, dirt is natural
The privilege of being loved and cared for properly, with respect for their
natural cycles of life.
I have successfully reared 159 out of 161 hatchling desert tortoises in the
last few years (mostly from rescues and eggs hatching from said rescues) and
every single one of them was allowed to brumate and ingest friendly bacteria
(innoculation utilizing healthy desert tortoise scat) and live outdoors
grazing, with little burrows.
It can be done, is done all the time, and in my opinion, those of us who
know should attempt to be responsible to pass on the methods that work in
nature and work in our backyards too.
Thanks for letting me vent on this a bit, just real frustrating when I get a
jello cube in and have to try to save them.
Thank you Creator and Great Mystery for helping me.
Don Williams, (Moderator: CTTC Turtle and Tortoise list ; Gopherus;
Vets_for_herps; TortoiseNutrition)
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
May You Walk in Beauty
Don :~)> and his desert torts in Bakersfield, CA.
www.Donsdeserttortoises.com
http://tortoise-aid.org/
www.KernCTTC.org
Sitting here looking at a baby desert tortoise that I picked up from Mojave
last evening.
Was found on K St. there about a month ago, the **** who found it contacted
me for permit application.
I tried via seven!!!! e-mails to get them to understand that they could not
put it in an aquarium, with only a heat lamp, no thermometer, no
microclimate, feeding "broccoli, carrots and lettuce tomatos and rarely some
watermelon dandielions and mustard greens too" and taking it out onto the
grass a couple of times a week there in the apartment complex they lived in
and allowing it to wander the grass and flowerbed (where the management
assures me they spray weekly - denied by the **** I got the tortoise from -
for bugs and weed killer for the grass.
Original photo of the little baby tort was a beautiful healthy baby, bright
eyes, wonderful coloration.
What I picked up was a jello cube, so soft I can't pick it up normally or
the sides collapse in.
No beautiful dark/light coloration left, just a dull gray with the top
vertebral scutes and the four on the sides of them a dark black looking
opaque set of scutes. So weak and skinny it only laid in the box for me
until late this afternoon, eating with great difficulty as if taking all
it's energy to try to bite off small pieces of grape leave and cut up
bermuda grass.
I did get it to finally eat some dried older tortoise scat, which it chose
over other items of graze, telling me it "KNOWS" it needs some friendly
bacteria to try to heal itself.
I don't hold out a lot of hope for it but have had a couple of these that
are in the process of eating up their bone trying to buffer toxins in their
blood pull out of it and can only hope.
This is coming on hatchling time, so please, everyone, if you hear of anyone
finding baby desert torts or having them hatch in their yard, try your best
to get them to understand that they need:
Sunshine for UVB, but also lots of shade to escape that heat, dappled
sunshine works
Burrows for the life saving moisture retaining microclimate with protection
from all predators
Natural graze foods of grasses/weeds/leaves with flowers as treats only
NO cabbage, broccoli, kale, spinach, fruits and no heat radiating glass
aquariums
NO calcium sands or pure sands, dirt is natural
The privilege of being loved and cared for properly, with respect for their
natural cycles of life.
I have successfully reared 159 out of 161 hatchling desert tortoises in the
last few years (mostly from rescues and eggs hatching from said rescues) and
every single one of them was allowed to brumate and ingest friendly bacteria
(innoculation utilizing healthy desert tortoise scat) and live outdoors
grazing, with little burrows.
It can be done, is done all the time, and in my opinion, those of us who
know should attempt to be responsible to pass on the methods that work in
nature and work in our backyards too.
Thanks for letting me vent on this a bit, just real frustrating when I get a
jello cube in and have to try to save them.
Thank you Creator and Great Mystery for helping me.
Don Williams, (Moderator: CTTC Turtle and Tortoise list ; Gopherus;
Vets_for_herps; TortoiseNutrition)
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
May You Walk in Beauty
Don :~)> and his desert torts in Bakersfield, CA.
www.Donsdeserttortoises.com
http://tortoise-aid.org/
www.KernCTTC.org
