Enrichment/outdoor space - help!

Eevomi

New Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2021
Messages
1
Location (City and/or State)
London UK
Hello! I'm new here so sorry if this is in the wrong place.

We have a little Hermann, we think he's around 2-3 years old and we've had him for a year and a half. He's been quite lethargic recently, weve been following the breeders advice on humidity etc but I think I underestimated what he needed as our home is particularly dry especially over winter with the central heating on. I have been soaking him daily over the last few days and he definitely seems to be perking up thankfully!

Now he's a bit bigger I want to be able to let him spend some of the summer outdoors as I'm worried he's bored and even our excellent lamp isn't ever going to be the same as the sun. We have a large roof terrace but it's all paved.

I've seen some people I know with dogs have these little trays of live grass that they use for their dogs to pee on when they don't have gardens - I'm wondering if there's something like this I could use as the flooring of an outdoor enclosure, to sprinkle some weed seeds on so he can forage properly and have more of an interesting life and better health! But I don't even know where to start looking, what they're called, or even whether this is something people can do with tortoises. We would need to build something secure as he is still very small and I imagine at risk from large birds and bolshy squirrels, and being in London, potentially rats!! So I was thinking maybe building an enclosure very similar to his indoor tortoise table (covered with a chicken wire lid to protect him from the cats) but with the grassy flooring.

My other question is about how to properly maintain humidity in his tortoise table. The breeder told us to give the substrate a spritz with a spray bottle every couple of days and that any more than that would cause more problems than it prevents, but I feel like this isn't enough, it dries out so fast. He's perked up so much since being soaked properly every day. We are using pro rep tortoise life for Mediterranean torts.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
 

Jan A

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2021
Messages
1,808
Location (City and/or State)
Boulder, CO
Hello! I'm new here so sorry if this is in the wrong place.

We have a little Hermann, we think he's around 2-3 years old and we've had him for a year and a half. He's been quite lethargic recently, weve been following the breeders advice on humidity etc but I think I underestimated what he needed as our home is particularly dry especially over winter with the central heating on. I have been soaking him daily over the last few days and he definitely seems to be perking up thankfully!

Now he's a bit bigger I want to be able to let him spend some of the summer outdoors as I'm worried he's bored and even our excellent lamp isn't ever going to be the same as the sun. We have a large roof terrace but it's all paved.

I've seen some people I know with dogs have these little trays of live grass that they use for their dogs to pee on when they don't have gardens - I'm wondering if there's something like this I could use as the flooring of an outdoor enclosure, to sprinkle some weed seeds on so he can forage properly and have more of an interesting life and better health! But I don't even know where to start looking, what they're called, or even whether this is something people can do with tortoises. We would need to build something secure as he is still very small and I imagine at risk from large birds and bolshy squirrels, and being in London, potentially rats!! So I was thinking maybe building an enclosure very similar to his indoor tortoise table (covered with a chicken wire lid to protect him from the cats) but with the grassy flooring.

My other question is about how to properly maintain humidity in his tortoise table. The breeder told us to give the substrate a spritz with a spray bottle every couple of days and that any more than that would cause more problems than it prevents, but I feel like this isn't enough, it dries out so fast. He's perked up so much since being soaked properly every day. We are using pro rep tortoise life for Mediterranean torts.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Welcome from Oklahoma. We have many tort owners in the UK, so I will let them give you specific advice. They're all quite ingenious, so i'm sure they'll have some thoughts for you. Meanwhile photos of your tort & indoor enclosure & lighting would be helpful, as well as substrate, temperatures & humidity in the enclosure. So welcome, someone will be along soon.
 

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