Best bedding for humidity/hermann tortoise

[Sydgeo21]

Hello, I have a hermann tortoise that I have been trying to figure out what bedding is best. I use Reptibark right now but i think it’s to dry for him. It’s the dry season where I live and keeping up his humidity has been hard. I do give him a warm soak everyday but the other day I noticed his eyes bubbling which I know means to dry of an environment. I want to use a topsoil but I don’t know what to use since I know a lot of hardweat stores put weed killers and toxins in the soil/even the organic. So I was wondering what is best topsoil to use? I’ve seen reptisoil at the pet store. Which I believe was a carbon soil and coconut coir mix if I remember right? Would that be good to mix with cypress mulch?

 

[Tom]

Hello, I have a hermann tortoise that I have been trying to figure out what bedding is best. I use Reptibark right now but i think it’s to dry for him. It’s the dry season where I live and keeping up his humidity has been hard. I do give him a warm soak everyday but the other day I noticed his eyes bubbling which I know means to dry of an environment. I want to use a topsoil but I don’t know what to use since I know a lot of hardweat stores put weed killers and toxins in the soil/even the organic. So I was wondering what is best topsoil to use? I’ve seen reptisoil at the pet store. Which I believe was a carbon soil and coconut coir mix if I remember right? Would that be good to mix with cypress mulch?

Reptibark is the best there is, but you have to keep it damp, just like any other substrate. You will need to dump water into the substrate periodically to maintain dampness as the moisture wicks up ad evaporates. How much water and how often varies tremendously. In winter when your house heater is running a lot, it will really dry things out. You might need to add more water in winter and less in fall or spring when temperatures are more mild. You have to do it by feel and adjust as needed. I frequently just dump the water bowl into the substrate (as long as there is no poop in it), rinse it, wipe it out, rinse again, and refill with some over flow. Doing this daily is sometimes enough, but with heat lamps, house heaters or A/C, and in a dry climate, some people need to do more than that. In some of my open topped tubs in summer, I needed to add a gallon of water per day to keep the substrate from drying out.

Soil should never be used. There is no way to know what composted yard waste it is made of, ad most of it has additives anyway.

Cypress mulch or coir would dry out exactly the same as the orchid bark. More water dumping into your substrate is the answer.

 

[Lyn W]

Hi and welcome,
This is the up to date caresheet for your species, which will help with everything (also written by Tom)

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

Read through that and ask as many questions as you like.
If you post pics of his enclosure and the lamps you use you'll get good feedback to make sure it's as safe and suitable as possible for your tort.

 

[Sydgeo21]

Reptibark is the best there is, but you have to keep it damp, just like any other substrate. You will need to dump water into the substrate periodically to maintain dampness as the moisture wicks up ad evaporates. How much water and how often varies tremendously. In winter when your house heater is running a lot, it will really dry things out. You might need to add more water in winter and less in fall or spring when temperatures are more mild. You have to do it by feel and adjust as needed. I frequently just dump the water bowl into the substrate (as long as there is no poop in it), rinse it, wipe it out, rinse again, and refill with some over flow. Doing this daily is sometimes enough, but with heat lamps, house heaters or A/C, and in a dry climate, some people need to do more than that. In some of my open topped tubs in summer, I needed to add a gallon of water per day to keep the substrate from drying out.

Soil should never be used. There is no way to know what composted yard waste it is made of, ad most of it has additives anyway.

Cypress mulch or coir would dry out exactly the same as the orchid bark. More water dumping into your substrate is the answer.

Thank you! I do mist the enclosure at least twice a day. I’m scared of making the substrate to wet because I know they can easily get respiratory infections. How do I know if there is to much water being dumped in?

 

[Sydgeo21]

Hi and welcome,
This is the up to date caresheet for your species, which will help with everything (also written by Tom)

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

Read through that and ask as many questions as you like.
If you post pics of his enclosure and the lamps you use you'll get good feedback to make sure it's as safe and suitable as possible for your tort.

Thank you! I use a ceramic heater I believe it’s 75 watt which created a basking area around 95ish and ambient temp around 82. For uvb I use Arcadia 12% t5 ho. About 20 inches away from his shell. That and the heat is on about 12 hours a day. Humidity I normally like to keep around 60-70% (he’s an adult tort) but during the winter I struggle to keep it 50-55%. I notice on really dry days his eyes get bubbly which makes me scared of respiratory infections. But I notice no runny nose and he eats like a champ and poops daily. (Lately his poo has been watery so I feel like he’s dehydrated so I’ve been soaking him daily about 20 minutes in warm water). I just his enclosure every morning and evening but this isn’t enough during the winter. How moist should I make the soil? I don’t want it to damp that he gets sick so how do I know what good balance there is?