Change of behavior in my greek

[flannelsaurus]

Hello wonderful tort lovers!

My greek is 2.5 years old. He is kept at 35-50% humidity with hot spot @97 and cold end @70 on cypress mulch. His diet is primarily romaine with desert tortoise grass pellets from Petco 1-3 times a week, and food sprinkled with TNT 1-3 times a week. He also has access to a cuttlebone. He gets a warm soak 2-4 times a week. His box is 18"x 4', and he is 4" long.

He normally eats from his bowl 3 times over several hours in the morning. I put down a handful of his food at 7am or so and he eats and takes breaks between til about 1pm, then goes back to sleep.

The past 3 days, he has been walking fretfully around his enclosure and eating much less. There have been two changes to his environment, also. My loud brother-in-law has been watching movies in his room, loudly, for many hours a day during my turtles normal waking hours. Usually it is very quiet. Second, we were trying some new foods. Sugar snap peas, and cucumber. He seems to like both, but ate much less of them then of his normal food.

Today, we gave him only a fresh serving of romaine, and my loud brother in law is gone, but he still ate lightly, though he did not walk around fretfully.

I am not planning to hibernate him as I am not an expert and am not able to perfectly control temps and conditions.

Is he telling me he wants to brumate, and if so, how can I curb this? Is he only unhappy about the noise? Is he thinking his box is too small? Box does not smell bad.

Any thoughts would be so welcome.

P.S. His eyes are clear, shell looks good/no changes.

-Alanna

 

[ascott]

There have been two changes to his environment, also.

My loud brother-in-law has been watching movies in his room, loudly, for many hours a day during my turtles normal waking hours. Usually it is very quiet. Second, we were trying some new foods. Sugar snap peas, and cucumber.

I would say, stop both new things Or, relocate your tort to a less busy location....but any changes in a torts world can create change in behavior....

I would not feed the snap peas nor the cucumber as part of a regular diet....I would offer spring mix along with the other items you mentioned --but I would break down the grass pellets into a fine powder over the other food...romaine is not a great thing to offer as a primary green...spring mix at least offers up a bit of variety...please go to the search bar on this site and search for greek tortoise diet..

 

[flannelsaurus]

Thank you so much Angela! Today he ate lightly again but seems much calmer and happier. We have tried him on spring mix before and he doesn't eat the red lettuce or frisse, only the iceberg and the romaine. Any tricks to getting him to eat all of it?

I will read through the greek diet tips again, thank you again for that.

-A

 

[biochemnerd808]

The trick to getting a tortoise to eat the non-iceberg and non-romaine components of a spring mix is.... to feed spring mix that doesn't have those in it. Iceberg and romaine are like chocolate to tortoises, and about as healthy - too high in water, and not many nutrients. If you offer Spring mix that contains mostly other kinds consistently, without the romaine, then your tortoise will eat those. He might pout for a few days and ignore the food, but he won't starve himself.

Good that you are using TNT - awesome stuff. I'd just leave out the pellet food. Leafy greens are enough.

Sugar snap peas are too high in protein, and cucumber has too much water (ok as a very occasional snack).

Thank you so much Angela! Today he ate lightly again but seems much calmer and happier. We have tried him on spring mix before and he doesn't eat the red lettuce or frisse, only the iceberg and the romaine. Any tricks to getting him to eat all of it?

I will read through the greek diet tips again, thank you again for that.

-A