Joe is toasting himself up to full operating heat at the moment. My husband and I have been racing round cutting and edging the lawn and doing other garden tasks before he gets active and becomes a nuisance! Friday was awful... a high of 7C here in Kent and today is rapidly heading for 20C...
I'm not sure what the temps are here in Manchester but it's definitely warm enough to be out. Although Milly will always find some place in the SHADE to hide Unfortunately.
Maybe slightly off topic, but do any of your tortoises try to eat stones and pebbles when in the garden? Mine does and I don't know why...?
When Joe was litle he used to eat pale coloured stones. We broke up his cuttlebone into bits and he ate that instead.
His obsession with small objects is limited to red these days. When the windfall cherries are on the ground he got so obsesed that he was tryig to eat red circles printed on the newspaper!
arw it was lovely here is nutgrove st helens uk however weve come in as its gone cold :-( austin however sat in shade and i dont know why he hasnt ate too either :-( xxx
It's lovely where we are too(manchester) and Harriet bypassed everything in her enclosure and sat in her plant pot!! Apparently she's not a sun worshipper!! She has tried eating pebbles before now...not sure why so we made her own enclosure and made sure it was pebble free!!
Mines not a sun worshiper at all either. Although mines a leopard and will get really pyramided without sun
I've resorted to forcing her for 10-15 minutes in an enclosure with nowhere to hide. Then I let her out for full run of the garden!
Lol at the sex toy plant pot haha!
Outdoors, even in the shade of a bush or plant pot on a cloudy day, your tort will be getting the essential UVB that they cannot get indoors without a special lamp.
I know this for sure having got my worst ever dose of sunburn as a teenager on a cloudy day when I laid on a rug under a tree in the south of France to read a book without suncream. Bad mistake... very, very sore.
What your tort doesn't get in the shade or when it's cloudy is basking temoeratures to aid it's activity and digestion. Now if your tort is going out fully warmed up from its indoor enclosure , why does it need to bask? It has done that already. It's fully fed and not hungry too, so it will go and do that thing that torts love best... find somewhere safe and comfortable to snooze.
A basking spot does need to feel safe. Joe likes to have a paving slab, slate or bare earth under him... I think because it warms up better than the grass. His choice of basking spot is in full sun in a corner or against a fence or wall... even a tiny corner made by a fence panel and fence post will do for him to push his head into (we are not talking Einstein when it comes to 'you can't see me')