Desert Tortoise Restless at Night

[dylanhighsmith]

The last couple nights our 26 year old Desert Tortoise has been very restless. We have a hide that he's always very comfortable in - usually at bedtime he just walks into the back corner of it, plops down and goes to sleep with very little movement throughout the night - however the last two nights he's been getting up and moving about very actively throughout the night trying to reposition himself - he seems to be trying to elevate his front, he keeps climbing whatever he can in his hide. This is different behavior for him, especially since we were expecting him to be slowing down more as it nears brumation time. Does anyone else have any experience with a nighttime restless tortoise?

 

[LaLaP]

Is it possible that he's constipated? Or impacted due to a substrate with sand, pumice, perlite or tiny stones? What is his enclosure like? And his diet?

 

[dylanhighsmith]

He has a yard that is mostly grass though there are some dirt areas with small pebbles. His diet mainly consists of foraging for weeds in the yard and is supplemented by us hand-feeding him things like dandelions, hibiscus leaves, hibiscus flowers, sow thistle and cale. When he forages he does prefer to eat crab grass and things that grows in the dirt area which does have some small pebbles. We have noticed that he's been drinking WAY more water than normally drinks this past couple weeks (we thought it had to do with preparing for brumation). He urinated a lot (with lots of urates ) today, and passed one small stool.