My pancake tort has seemed depressed he usally is very ativewe because of the winter im not letting him go outside anymore and since then he has been staying in a corner and barely eating plus it seemed to happened after i gave him a new bigger encloser. he wont eat his favorite food: lettuce
Depression
- Thread starter tortturt
- Start date
What are your actual temps? Measure your Torts shell with a temp gun.....This is usually the number 1 culprit.
I highly doubt this is the actual temp. Go buy a temp gun $10 at harbor freight, or HomeDepot.
I'm using a 60-watt bulb, and the humidity level is 50-40. The hot side is 85, and the cold side is 70. He is a baby pancake tort, so his encloser is 19 by 44 inches. And I'm using coconut chips as the substrate, which in the previous encloser he was fine with. And I give him lettuce but add in weeds like clovers.
Where are you getting these numbers? if it's from a temperature gauge in the enclosure there's your problem. You need to get a way better idea of your ACTUAL temps. The humidity would really only be an issue if he is dehydrated .... so if you are not focused on proper hydration this level of humidity is to low. I completely understand it's a pancake BUT if he is not comfortable and stressed as well as dehydrated you need to get it all back into the median range to get him to calm, relax and settle comfortably into his enclosure.
He's not depressed. His environmental needs are not being met. These are the wrong conditions for a baby pancake. It should be no lower than 80 at any time, anywhere in the enclosure, and humidity should be up around 80%. It is near impossible to maintain these conditions with an open topped enclosure. You need a closed chamber type of enclosure with all of the heating and lighting contained inside.
It should be around 100 directly under the basking bulb. 85-90 is a good temp for the warm side during the day, and 80 over on the cool side and 80 at night.
Coco chips are not a good substrate. Coco coir can work, but not the chips. Its too hard for them to walk on , and those large oddly shaped pieces can cause impaction where coir can easily pass through when accidentally ingested.
This thread will explain it all:
The Best Way To Raise A Sulcata, Leopard, Or Star Tortoise
I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies? 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. Babies hatch during the...
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More info here:
Info For New People. Please Read This First.
Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...
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You don't need a humidifier you need damp substrate and a closed top to keep it in. That little circle you bought from Petco is worthless. Go get a real temp gun...less than $15 and start finding out what environment you are REALLY housing him in.
A closed chamber needs to be sealed up...NO holes. Instead of thinking of holes as allowing air into the chamber, think of holes as allowing your humidity and heat to escape. No Holes, or cracks, or any openings. Do not worry about your tortoise running out of air. Every time you open the chamber a huge amount of air is displaced. Lifting the lid or opening the door of a truly sealed enclosure creates a vortex that pulls a huge amount of the internal air out, which also pulls in fresh to replace it. Your tort will be just fine!
Humidifiers, sprayers, and foggers are BAD for tortoises. They make droplets, not humidity. Look at the nose holes (nares) of your tortoise. They are tiny compared to the drops of water those devices put into the air. You are sort of water boarding your tortoise when using those in an enclosure. The best way to have a stable humidity is to have the lowest inch or so of your substrate be wet, covered with four to six inches of "dry" fir/orchid bark. That way the water evaporates up through creating humidity, but your tort still has a dry surface to walk on and dig in. With this system, any time your humidity drops below 84% (or whatever your species of tortoise needs) you simply pour warm water into the corners to bring it back up. If you like a more detailed explanation of this, let me know and I'll find it for you.
Don't feel bad about getting lead in the wrong direction by whatever pet store sold you the cheap little round gauges. A lot of us get told to buy wrong stuff by pet stores. They do not know what each kind of tortoise needs - and treat them as having the same needs. BUT - each species has very different needs. Half the time they can't even identify which species you have. I got those very same little tin gauges when I was first starting out. The temp gun works multiple times better, and is simple to use. Harbor Freight, WalMart, places online, and bunches of sources carry them (but Harbour Freight usually has the lowest price), so compare prices. The last time I looked there were still tons of them left over from Covid and they were $12-20 bucks.
Have you read this yet?
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Keep on asking questions. We are all here to help you.
Welcome Aboard!
.
.
Humidifiers, sprayers, and foggers are BAD for tortoises. They make droplets, not humidity. Look at the nose holes (nares) of your tortoise. They are tiny compared to the drops of water those devices put into the air. You are sort of water boarding your tortoise when using those in an enclosure. The best way to have a stable humidity is to have the lowest inch or so of your substrate be wet, covered with four to six inches of "dry" fir/orchid bark. That way the water evaporates up through creating humidity, but your tort still has a dry surface to walk on and dig in. With this system, any time your humidity drops below 84% (or whatever your species of tortoise needs) you simply pour warm water into the corners to bring it back up. If you like a more detailed explanation of this, let me know and I'll find it for you.
Don't feel bad about getting lead in the wrong direction by whatever pet store sold you the cheap little round gauges. A lot of us get told to buy wrong stuff by pet stores. They do not know what each kind of tortoise needs - and treat them as having the same needs. BUT - each species has very different needs. Half the time they can't even identify which species you have. I got those very same little tin gauges when I was first starting out. The temp gun works multiple times better, and is simple to use. Harbor Freight, WalMart, places online, and bunches of sources carry them (but Harbour Freight usually has the lowest price), so compare prices. The last time I looked there were still tons of them left over from Covid and they were $12-20 bucks.
Have you read this yet?
Info For New People. Please Read This First.
Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...
tortoiseforum.org
These might be helpful, too.
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Hello everyone! I’d been a long time lurker on this site long before joining just under a year ago now, over that time I’ve seen these husbandry issues come up time and time again, sometimes with dire consequences☹️ I thought this thread might serve as a good visual guide for these common...
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Beginner Mistakes
To comment on Tom's article, go here: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-split-Beginner-Mistakes#axzz1tG8s05M5 Over the years many of us, myself included, have made many of these mistakes, and we have certainly seen them made many times by others. With springtime upon us and many new...
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Keep on asking questions. We are all here to help you.
Welcome Aboard!
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