Behavior/eating habit changes

Status
Not open for further replies.

brittaniwray

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2013
Messages
13
Location (City and/or State)
San Marcos, Texas
Hello everyone! My Russian, which I've had now since January, has been behaving very strangely lately, and I'm having a really hard time getting him to eat. For the first few weeks, his appetite was voracious, he ate everything I put in front of him as soon as I set the food down. Over time, his appetite waned, especially after he was treated for parasites. After having him for 2 months or so, he kind of normalized and got into a routine (a mixed pile of greens the size of his shell once a day around 10:30 or 11 a.m.). However, I added green beans into his diet rotation and he just loves them. He loves them so much, he'll hardly eat anything else. Any time I give him food, he just rifles through it looking for green beans. If he finds them, he eats them and then goes about his day without paying any attention to the other food. If he doesn't find them, he promptly goes into his hide and buries himself.

For the last month or so, he's been buried constantly. He doesn't come out for food, to bask, to soak, nothing. He won't even come up for green beans (though I did manage to get him to eat one that I hand fed to him yesterday, I just hate to think he's starving). I dig him up every day to every other day depending on the weather and take him outside for natural sunlight, and I've been soaking him for 15 minutes twice a week. But once he's back in the habitat, he goes right back under the substrate.

I think I should also note a couple more things. First, my roommate and I recently moved. I thought he may have been traumatized, but he didn't behave this way after the last time I moved him to a transitional home while we moved our furniture and stuff. We also adopted a dog, but he really shows no interest in the habitat or the tortoise. Perhaps my tort can still smell the dog, and it's freaking him out?

His temps are normal to maybe a little high (78-83 in his hide, 98-103 in the hottest part under a ceramic element with a Zoo Med Powersun 160 for UV). I've tried turning the heat element off to see if that'll prompt him to come out to bask, but no luck. I live in Central Texas, and since this is his first sweltering summer here, I thought perhaps he might be too hot. I try to keep the humidity around 50%. He lives indoors in a wooden Zoo Med tortoise house.

His eyes are clear and he doesn't have a runny nose or teary eyes or any other signs of illness, from what I can tell.

So many things to speculate about! Yikes. Thanks ahead for any insight!

-Brittani
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top