Cannot flip back

[ENHorse]

Hi,

I have a 6 month old leopard tortoise. She likes to climb to her shelter. So, I made a ramp using a substrate to make it easy. The problem is she keeps jumping from the roof of the shelter to the ground and she turns upside-down. Sometimes, she cannot filp back herself (I watched her for 2 hours and couldn't make it..so I had to help).

Even though I remove the substrate to the roof, anyway she can climb to the roof. What should I do? I think my substrate is quite soft (cypress mulch, Exo Terra Plantation Soil). So, when she tries to flip back, the ground is easily excavated and cannot support her.

enclosure: 30inch by 18inch

 

[Gillian M]

V sorry your tort keeps flipping on her back. Regret that I can't help you, but I can tag some experts here:

@Yvonne G
@Tom
@TechnoCheese

please help @ENHorse asap. Thank you very much.

@ENHorse , please post a full pic of your tort's enclosure.

And welcome to the forum.

 

[ENHorse]

V sorry your tort keeps flipping on her back. Regret that I can't help you, but I can tag some experts here:

@Yvonne G
@Tom
@TechnoCheese

please help @ENHorse asap. Thank you very much.

@ENHorse , please post a full pic of your tort's enclosure.

And welcome to the forum.

Thanks,
Here is the photo of my enclosure I took before.


This is not the exactly same with the current configuration. But, mostly same.

 

[lilly_sand99]

So I have a little Russian tort. And I had a box about the size of yours. And when it was about yours age it started pacing. A lot. And I got it a bigger enclosure, and the pacing has stopped.

Applying my situation to yours, you need a bigger enclosure.

I can see you have put a lot of time and energy and effort to make all of the humidity and tempatures correct, so hopefully there is a better solution, or a different problem that I don't see?

 

[Tom]

Hi,
I have a 6 month old leopard tortoise. She likes to climb to her shelter. So, I made a ramp using a substrate to make it easy. The problem is she keeps jumping from the roof of the shelter to the ground and she turns upside-down. Sometimes, she cannot filp back herself (I watched her for 2 hours and couldn't make it..so I had to help).

Even though I remove the substrate to the roof, anyway she can climb to the roof. What should I do? I think my substrate is quite soft (cypress mulch, Exo Terra Plantation Soil). So, when she tries to flip back, the ground is easily excavated and cannot support her.

enclosure: 30inch by 18inch

You enclosure is much too small. Twice that would be too small for a leopard that size.

You should get rid of the half log and replace it with a proper humid hide that the tortoise can't climb on. I use black dishwashing tubs from Walmart. They cost less than $2. I flip them upside down, cut out a door hole, and wet the substrate under them.

Your water bowl is a safety hazard too. Terra cotta plant saucers sunk into the substrate will work much better and be safer.

 

[ENHorse]

You enclosure is much too small. Twice that would be too small for a leopard that size.

You should get rid of the half log and replace it with a proper humid hide that the tortoise can't climb on. I use black dishwashing tubs from Walmart. They cost less than $2. I flip them upside down, cut out a door hole, and wet the substrate under them.

Your water bowl is a safety hazard too. Terra cotta plant saucers sunk into the substrate will work much better and be safer.

Thanks for the reply. I did not expect that I need a larger enclosure.. Unfortunately, this is almost the largest size of enclosure I can afford in my place. I will try to solve the problem. Thanks for the advice.

 

[TheKB]

Yeah the enclosure is too small. The turtle needs exercise and activities and if it doesn't have room to walk around in and is bored it will start trying to climb out or on top of things to keep themselves busy. While climbing they can fall and tip themselves. Having them stuff to climb on isn't bad, just don't have anything climbable next to heating sources and have their climbing rocks and stuff so small they can't tip themselves on them. If they fall upside down in the waterbowl or heat they can drown and overheat and die.

Also keep in mind that this tortoise will grow much bigger and will need entire rooms worth of size to roam around in by the time they are ten years old. You might want to consider smaller species of tortoise if room is an issue.

 

[TheKB]

Speaking of waterbowls, people on this forum tend to suggest large clay bowls that are put under planting pots. I would suggest getting one that is glazed over the unglazed ones. Unglazed clay is not food safe because it has millions of small holes that you can't reliably clean that is haven for bacteria growth. Warm humid waterbowl that gets pooped in on regular basis is something I wouldn't drink from myself. You would have to boil it once in a while to keep it sanitary.

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

Sorry, sometimes I can’t control myself …