First Hingeback!

methos75

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So I've always wanted a Homes but due to all the different issues with them being mostly WC I stayed away, but I finally took the plunge and got what for me is my dream tortoise. She is a gorgeous little girl. Really fantastic shape, nice and heavy, alert and active and eating really well. Things have so far gone pretty smoothly. Her enclosure is pretty simple, I'm pretty much just copying the setup used to quarantine new Hingebacks that I saw being used on a Kinixys Working Group video, a large tub with deep substrate, a hide, and a water dish though I added a few artificial plants to build more security for the tortoise and I'm using a low light led for a small bit of illumination. Temps and humidity steady at 80. 978B10F0-1C5A-49E0-A1B2-73BBCFB1B3D6.jpeg24DF6C4B-BE64-4C81-8B70-57039181A509.jpeg
 

TammyJ

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So I've always wanted a Homes but due to all the different issues with them being mostly WC I stayed away, but I finally took the plunge and got what for me is my dream tortoise. She is a gorgeous little girl. Really fantastic shape, nice and heavy, alert and active and eating really well. Things have so far gone pretty smoothly. Her enclosure is pretty simple, I'm pretty much just copying the setup used to quarantine new Hingebacks that I saw being used on a Kinixys Working Group video, a large tub with deep substrate, a hide, and a water dish though I added a few artificial plants to build more security for the tortoise and I'm using a low light led for a small bit of illumination. Temps and humidity steady at 80. View attachment 343713View attachment 343714
Absolutely gorgeous. I love these showy guys! Hope all goes well.
 

2turtletom

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So I've always wanted a Homes but due to all the different issues with them being mostly WC I stayed away, but I finally took the plunge and got what for me is my dream tortoise. She is a gorgeous little girl. Really fantastic shape, nice and heavy, alert and active and eating really well. Things have so far gone pretty smoothly. Her enclosure is pretty simple, I'm pretty much just copying the setup used to quarantine new Hingebacks that I saw being used on a Kinixys Working Group video, a large tub with deep substrate, a hide, and a water dish though I added a few artificial plants to build more security for the tortoise and I'm using a low light led for a small bit of illumination. Temps and humidity steady at 80. View attachment 343713View attachment 343714

Hi Methos, thanks for watching my videos; I hope they are helpful. Here’s an article I wrote about s species: https://hingeback.blogspot.com/2019/10/help-my-homes-hingeback-tortoise-is.html

As far as sex goes, we are finding it very difficult to sex animals that are less than 7 inches long. Most young ones look like females, and many of us have made that mistake because it just takes years for these animals to show up as male. I was shocked when my favorite female WC animal flashed her penis.

Welcome, happy to help when you need it. How and what is this one eating?

-Tom
 

methos75

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Lawrenceville, IL via Walker, LA
Hi Methos, thanks for watching my videos; I hope they are helpful. Here’s an article I wrote about s species: https://hingeback.blogspot.com/2019/10/help-my-homes-hingeback-tortoise-is.html

As far as sex goes, we are finding it very difficult to sex animals that are less than 7 inches long. Most young ones look like females, and many of us have made that mistake because it just takes years for these animals to show up as male. I was shocked when my favorite female WC animal flashed her penis.

Welcome, happy to help when you need it. How and what is this one eating?

-Tom
Thanks, I was just assuming female due to tail length but yeah, she is pretty small still. I actually have your blog already saved on my tablet and have read through it numerous times and as you know through previous communications have watched through your videos numerous times. This has been a long road, I've been researching and planning on this project since mid last year and consuming everything I could find on them which is frankly most your stuff and Kinixys Keepers and KWG on Facebook. There really aren't many keepers of these guys it seems, at least successful ones.

Right now she is eating pretty much just Mushrooms though I do give her a pretty diverse selection. I gave her papaya, mushrooms, a bit of Mazuri and Marion Zoological red pellets, squash, some dandelions, and on your recommendation in one of your vids I used some of the ZooMed Can snails this morning. I feed her after her hour soak and after misting her since you and others have stated that provokes a feeding response. She goes after Mushrooms and ate most of a whole one this morning and a bit of Papaya, I haven't seen her eat any protein yet but I do place her food plate right in front of her hide so you can reach it without coming out and it's possible she is grazing through the day because I see little bite marks on the food.

She is still pretty skittish, she is frantic trying to escape the tub while soaking and when she sees me she clams up and will not move for while. But she is pretty active if she doesn't notice me and I can see her exploring everything. I went and added another hide today and piled up leaves in the dark corner to give her more hiding options. I used the tub idea I saw on KWG so half the tub still has the lid on to give her a darker shaded area and the light in just has a low level led light that gives it really low lumimation.

She is going to the bathroom pretty regularly when soaking and yeah, pretty disgusting, but I've been checking her feces for signs of worms but I haven't noticed any. I live in pretty rural Illinois so vets with reptile experience is pretty scarce so years ago I bought the Essential Health care and rehabilitation of Turtles and Tortoise and just use it to do what I can at home but luckily outside worms I've never had any real issues. But so far I haven't noticed anything that isn't really normal for a new WC tortoise.
 

2turtletom

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Thanks, I was just assuming female due to tail length but yeah, she is pretty small still. I actually have your blog already saved on my tablet and have read through it numerous times and as you know through previous communications have watched through your videos numerous times. This has been a long road, I've been researching and planning on this project since mid last year and consuming everything I could find on them which is frankly most your stuff and Kinixys Keepers and KWG on Facebook. There really aren't many keepers of these guys it seems, at least successful ones.

Right now she is eating pretty much just Mushrooms though I do give her a pretty diverse selection. I gave her papaya, mushrooms, a bit of Mazuri and Marion Zoological red pellets, squash, some dandelions, and on your recommendation in one of your vids I used some of the ZooMed Can snails this morning. I feed her after her hour soak and after misting her since you and others have stated that provokes a feeding response. She goes after Mushrooms and ate most of a whole one this morning and a bit of Papaya, I haven't seen her eat any protein yet but I do place her food plate right in front of her hide so you can reach it without coming out and it's possible she is grazing through the day because I see little bite marks on the food.

She is still pretty skittish, she is frantic trying to escape the tub while soaking and when she sees me she clams up and will not move for while. But she is pretty active if she doesn't notice me and I can see her exploring everything. I went and added another hide today and piled up leaves in the dark corner to give her more hiding options. I used the tub idea I saw on KWG so half the tub still has the lid on to give her a darker shaded area and the light in just has a low level led light that gives it really low lumimation.

She is going to the bathroom pretty regularly when soaking and yeah, pretty disgusting, but I've been checking her feces for signs of worms but I haven't noticed any. I live in pretty rural Illinois so vets with reptile experience is pretty scarce so years ago I bought the Essential Health care and rehabilitation of Turtles and Tortoise and just use it to do what I can at home but luckily outside worms I've never had any real issues. But so far I haven't noticed anything that isn't really normal for a new WC tortoise.
All of these things are good signs - in a few months, when the animals have been with the importers and shops, that's when we'll see the animals really suffering. Sad, but true. I sent you a note about temps, but compare these animals to a frog that might be living in the rainforest - frogs don't like it very hot, neither do Kinixys homeana. Mine seem to self regulate to about 75 degrees.
 
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methos75

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Good day today! She ate like a pig finally, devoured her snails, Papaya, squash, some Marion Zoological red pellets, even chowed down on those nasty looking little Flunker Crafted Tortoise pellets that everyone else refuses to eat.
 

zovick

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Good day today! She ate like a pig finally, devoured her snails, Papaya, squash, some Marion Zoological red pellets, even chowed down on those nasty looking little Flunker Crafted Tortoise pellets that everyone else refuses to eat.
You can almost always count on the Forest Hingebacks to eat earthworms if you are looking for another source of protein. I used to dust worms with Rep-Cal and/or Herptivite for mine and put them on a paper plate in the enclosure and then watch the feeding frenzy which ensued.

My groups of 6 or 7 adults of both erosa and homeana would go through two dozen night crawlers per group in 5 minutes or less.
 

methos75

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You can almost always count on the Forest Hingebacks to eat earthworms if you are looking for another source of protein. I used to dust worms with Rep-Cal and/or Herptivite for mine and put them on a paper plate in the enclosure and then watch the feeding frenzy which ensued.

My groups of 6 or 7 adults of both erosa and homeana would go through two dozen night crawlers per group in 5 minutes or less.
I put worms in her plate every morning lol, she shows no interest in them so far
 

methos75

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I'm going to try shrimp and pinkies this weekend. I have a Emys and they are a bit similar diet wise though the Emys eats lots of greens, so I have all sorts of protein sources.
 

2turtletom

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You can almost always count on the Forest Hingebacks to eat earthworms if you are looking for another source of protein. I used to dust worms with Rep-Cal and/or Herptivite for mine and put them on a paper plate in the enclosure and then watch the feeding frenzy which ensued.

My groups of 6 or 7 adults of both erosa and homeana would go through two dozen night crawlers per group in 5 minutes or less.
That scene would have been great for TikTok Bill!
 

methos75

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Still no protein today either. It's weird because otherwise she is becoming a pretty good eater, she even ate some Raspberry and Moringa from Kapidolofarms this morning but hell no to worms.
 

zovick

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Still no protein today either. It's weird because otherwise she is becoming a pretty good eater, she even ate some Raspberry and Moringa from Kapidolofarms this morning but hell no to worms.
You could try slugs or snails instead of worms if you can find them. Have you tried newborn (pinky) mice? Several of my tortoises liked them also.
 

methos75

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You could try slugs or snails instead of worms if you can find them. Have you tried newborn (pinky) mice? Several of my tortoises liked them also.
Success with Earthworms of a sort, she will not eat them out of a plate but I dumped them into her enclosure and spread them around throughout her leaf bed and that got her excited and she spent the morning hunting then down
 

zovick

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Success with Earthworms of a sort, she will not eat them out of a plate but I dumped them into her enclosure and spread them around throughout her leaf bed and that got her excited and she spent the morning hunting then down
Good job!
 

methos75

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She is doing awesome now. Really well established already. Now she just eats everything and then once she cleans her plate comes over and begs for more. I placed a small 5.0 UVB bulb over on side of her enclosure and she even spends a hour pretty much everyday since I set it up underneath it after eating before going into her hide.
 

methos75

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Still doing awesome and really coming into her own personality wise now, she has a pretty normal routine now where she starts to bask under her uvb around 530 because her lights shut off at 6, then she eats in the dark. Pretty much everyday now.

I've also since taken in a pair of Bells which have honestly probably been some of the easiest Tortoises I've worked with. Started eating from the moment I've received them and they are already little character.
 

2turtletom

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Still doing awesome and really coming into her own personality wise now, she has a pretty normal routine now where she starts to bask under her uvb around 530 because her lights shut off at 6, then she eats in the dark. Pretty much everyday now.

I've also since taken in a pair of Bells which have honestly probably been some of the easiest Tortoises I've worked with. Started eating from the moment I've received them and they are already little character.
Welcome to the wonderful world of hingebacks! Are they not awesome?
 

methos75

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Welcome to the wonderful world of hingebacks! Are they not awesome?
Yeah, I'm moving them all into some nice Zen Habitats soon, I'll be sure to post pics once completed. Trying to go as natural as possible. For the Bells I'm looking at this Jurassic Natural Australian substrate made for Bearded Dragons. It's a gritty sand and rock mixture that I think if mixed with leaves and peat moss will replicate their natural environment pretty good. We shall see.
 
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