DT brumation help

TucsonTortoise

New Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2022
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3
Location (City and/or State)
Tucson
Hey guys. My wife and I adopted a ~25 year old desert tortoise this summer. We keep her outside and as the temperatures here in Tucson have dropped in the last month, her activity levels have dropped. To see if she started brumating, we put a trail cam outside her burrow and she did not come out for a week but I just had a look today and it shows she came out yesterday for a couple hours. Is this normal or something we should be concerned? I have seen a pack rat go into her burrow at night a few times. Should this be a concern? Also, we built the burrow following the AZGFD guidelines, with the U shaped cinderblocks. The burrow seems overly large and we did fill it in a little and blocked a little of the entrance to try and regulate the airflow/temperature a little better. Should we also consider putting a trap over the entrance when she brumates for good?
 

innocent

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Sep 18, 2022
Messages
63
Location (City and/or State)
Acton, Ca
I hope a experienced keeper answers this question soon. In the mean time what is the tortoises name? Do you have any pics of it or the burrow? Welcome to this forum it is full of great info.
 

innocent

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Joined
Sep 18, 2022
Messages
63
Location (City and/or State)
Acton, Ca
What trail cam do you use and how does it work? I am interested because the Desert Tortoises I am in care of brumate in burrows I made out doors.
 

TucsonTortoise

New Member
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Nov 19, 2022
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Tucson
I hope a experienced keeper answers this question soon. In the mean time what is the tortoises name? Do you have any pics of it or the burrow? Welcome to this forum it is full of great info.
She is called Daisy. We were told when we adopted her that she was quite shy but she is very sociable and comes right up to us, especially when we bring her food! Below is her burrow. Because the dirt we have to put on top of the burrow is quite sandy, we added bricks on top of it to keep it in place when it rains. We extended the wonderboard over the entrance to make sure no rain gets inside. 1668889677300.jpeg

This is the trail cam we use and it works really well for us to see what wildlife we get on our property. It can set to take any length of video or pictures.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097D3CV33/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20
 

Tom

The Dog Trainer
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63,269
Location (City and/or State)
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Hey guys. My wife and I adopted a ~25 year old desert tortoise this summer. We keep her outside and as the temperatures here in Tucson have dropped in the last month, her activity levels have dropped. To see if she started brumating, we put a trail cam outside her burrow and she did not come out for a week but I just had a look today and it shows she came out yesterday for a couple hours. Is this normal or something we should be concerned? I have seen a pack rat go into her burrow at night a few times. Should this be a concern? Also, we built the burrow following the AZGFD guidelines, with the U shaped cinderblocks. The burrow seems overly large and we did fill it in a little and blocked a little of the entrance to try and regulate the airflow/temperature a little better. Should we also consider putting a trap over the entrance when she brumates for good?
Hello and welcome.

I am glad you came and you may have avoided disaster by doing so.

That is not a burrow. It is an above ground shelter, and it is not suitable for brumation.

That government site, and almost every other site is full of all sorts of the wrong care info, and if followed, it will likely lead to the death of the tortoise. Here is the correct care info:

Here is the brumation info:

Questions are welcome! Please ask. I love this species and I don't want to see another one die because people followed the wrong care advice.
 

TucsonTortoise

New Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2022
Messages
3
Location (City and/or State)
Tucson
Hello and welcome.

I am glad you came and you may have avoided disaster by doing so.

That is not a burrow. It is an above ground shelter, and it is not suitable for brumation.

That government site, and almost every other site is full of all sorts of the wrong care info, and if followed, it will likely lead to the death of the tortoise. Here is the correct care info:

Here is the brumation info:

Questions are welcome! Please ask. I love this species and I don't want to see another one die because people followed the wrong care advice.
Thank you so much for your reply! I'm kind of confused as to why the people adopting our the tortoises would give wrong information? Here's the guidelines to the burrow we built


What you can't see from our picture is that we dug a 20% angle inside the burrow. She has since dug a little more in the back. We also put a digital thermometer in and the temperature is staying around 50 degrees at night. I guess in our gut we felt it was too big though, as we filled in the inside a little and blocked a third of the entrance.
 

Tom

The Dog Trainer
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 9, 2010
Messages
63,269
Location (City and/or State)
Southern California
I'm kind of confused as to why the people adopting our the tortoises would give wrong information?
Because they are ignorant. They don't know what they are talking about. This is rampant for all tortoise species. Pet stores, vets, YT, FB, reddit, tortoise breeders and most other sources have all had the wrong ideas about tortoise care for decades. The same wrong info has been parroted for several generations now. Me and many more people here have been through a similar journey for the last three decades or more. The conventional advice, the same advice you were given, failed for us time and time again, and we were compelled to figure out why that info wasn't working and what did work. After decades of trial and error, research, experimentation, conversation, conferences, and collaboration we have figured out many of the pieces to this puzzle.

You get the benefit of all that work for free without having to go through that decades long process. Your welcome! :)
 

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