dafaher
New Member
Good morning, everyone! I'm new to this community and all the topics that I read seem very interesting. Thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experience about these beautiful animals.
I have a male tortoise named Martino, he's 30 years old. For the first time in all these years he had an intermittent hibernation (due to climate change). I'm from Buenos Aires (Argentina) and we just had a winter with temperatures up to 24°C-25ºC, which is both unusual and alarming.
Martino awoke 15 days ago and I called the vet because he doesn't want to eat. The vet made a medical checkup before hibernating (blood and stool tests) and a new one now, but everything seems fine. The thing is, he recommended me to stimulate his appetite with a vitamin supplement (it's a kind of yogurt), and I asked him if I should put a lamp in the terrarium, he said yes. Martino spends his spring and summer in the garden but when autumn arrives and he begins his hibernation, I put him in a terrarium inside my house, in a room where the temperature is more balanced.
Whenever the weather is nice I leave him sunbathing for 8-9 hours a day, his levels of calcium and vitamin A couldn't be any more perfect. But the problem here is the environmental temperature. I never had the need to buy lamps because it never happened before, so I'm lost. And I thought I should ask people with more experience than I.
I need to buy a heat lamp, don't I? I don't think he needs a UVA/UVB lamp because, as I said before, he spends hours sunbathing.
I'll start with a heat lamp and will see if he regains appetite with a more consistent temperature. I must be honest, the vet said he was perfect but I'm quite worried because he already woke up but didn't eat in 15 days (except for one day -a warmer day, 25ºC-...he ate a few bites of tomato), so I'm sure he must be already exhausting his energy reserves. It's like that now he woke up, he doesn't know whether to sleep or waking up so he's still the whole day with open eyes, or just sleeps. I keep him hydrated, I administer him water daily with a needleless syringe and he also takes warm baths.
I would appreciate any tip or suggestion. And of course, thanks in advance!
Ps: I'm very sorry about my english, it's quite rusty.
Additional info: today was the day he walked more. He walked two meters to a shady spot because it seems that the sun was already bothering him. I attach a pic of my boy the day he ate a little bit of tomato.
I have a male tortoise named Martino, he's 30 years old. For the first time in all these years he had an intermittent hibernation (due to climate change). I'm from Buenos Aires (Argentina) and we just had a winter with temperatures up to 24°C-25ºC, which is both unusual and alarming.
Martino awoke 15 days ago and I called the vet because he doesn't want to eat. The vet made a medical checkup before hibernating (blood and stool tests) and a new one now, but everything seems fine. The thing is, he recommended me to stimulate his appetite with a vitamin supplement (it's a kind of yogurt), and I asked him if I should put a lamp in the terrarium, he said yes. Martino spends his spring and summer in the garden but when autumn arrives and he begins his hibernation, I put him in a terrarium inside my house, in a room where the temperature is more balanced.
Whenever the weather is nice I leave him sunbathing for 8-9 hours a day, his levels of calcium and vitamin A couldn't be any more perfect. But the problem here is the environmental temperature. I never had the need to buy lamps because it never happened before, so I'm lost. And I thought I should ask people with more experience than I.
I need to buy a heat lamp, don't I? I don't think he needs a UVA/UVB lamp because, as I said before, he spends hours sunbathing.
I'll start with a heat lamp and will see if he regains appetite with a more consistent temperature. I must be honest, the vet said he was perfect but I'm quite worried because he already woke up but didn't eat in 15 days (except for one day -a warmer day, 25ºC-...he ate a few bites of tomato), so I'm sure he must be already exhausting his energy reserves. It's like that now he woke up, he doesn't know whether to sleep or waking up so he's still the whole day with open eyes, or just sleeps. I keep him hydrated, I administer him water daily with a needleless syringe and he also takes warm baths.
I would appreciate any tip or suggestion. And of course, thanks in advance!
Ps: I'm very sorry about my english, it's quite rusty.
Additional info: today was the day he walked more. He walked two meters to a shady spot because it seems that the sun was already bothering him. I attach a pic of my boy the day he ate a little bit of tomato.