GabeH

New Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2022
Messages
8
Location (City and/or State)
Syracuse, NY
I have a 5-10 year old female Russian tortoise named Sprinkles. I got Sprinkles in mid June. Up until a few weeks ago she had a great appetite, eating most of the food I would put in her 8 inch terracotta dish, a very large handful. She eats mixed leafy greens and sometimes she gets radicchio as a treat. She’s wild caught and won’t eat pellets. Her appetite decreased over the last 10-14 days and then she stopped eating all together on September 30th. (Today is October 3). She is also in her hide more, and she’s pretty inactive. She’s never been good at drinking and will only drink during soaks. Lately she isn’t drinking during her soaks. I took her to the vet today, she spent the day there for an exam and observation. The vet told me he can’t find anything wrong with her. He said she’s probably beginning to brumate. (He is an exotics vet, there isn’t a tortoise specialist in my area). My big concern is that she has lost 24 grams since late June. I know that’s a lot of weight to lose and she lost it quickly. I am a vet tech and though I don’t work with exotics weight loss that extremely is concerning to me, I also don’t think they lose weight before they brumate. The vet told me to just monitor her weight so I bought a gram scale today. I’m going to start weighing her daily. She had a fecal in July in the in house lab and had no parasites. They want me to get a fecal to send out to an outside lab but she isn’t defecating, not even in her soak. I will take any suggestions on how to to get a fecal in this situation. He gave her some SQ fluids today, that’s all the treatment he felt she needed. I have a hunch that she has something going on with her vs brumating. Has anyone had this issue? If she loses more weight over the next week im bringing her back in. I am just very worried about my girl, I love her very much and it would break my heart if she was sick and I just wrote it off as brumating. I am a new tortoise mom so I apologize if this post is annoying, I’m just concerned and lost as to what to do. Also, finances don’t matter to me I’ll spend thousands on her without a problem so I’ll take any and all suggestions. Thank you in advanced
 

wellington

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
49,660
Location (City and/or State)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
First we need to know the following.
Size enclosure
Temps: basking, all over, night
How long have you had her
Any humidity

Also diet needs improving with much more variety added. Broad leafy greens/weeds.
 

GabeH

New Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2022
Messages
8
Location (City and/or State)
Syracuse, NY
She has a 4x5 enclosure.
Temps
Basking: 95-97
CHE: 80-82
All over: 69-71
Night: not sure I can check tonight
-CHE is always on, basking is on for 13 hours a day. I have a 100 watt bulb in each
-I got her in mid June
Humidity right now is 60% - I have one of the circle gauges on the wall of her enclosure. Any suggestions for a good digital humidity gauge would be appreciated, I don’t know how accurate mine is

Can you tell me what else to feed her? I live in New York so it’s hard to find weeds year round. I have a wegmans that has a big variety of greens year round
 
Top