Goosefoot Adventures

Tidgy's Dad

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View attachment 187303 I wonder...despite having the lights/heat on and on a timer (12 hours)...how much the intensity/hours of natural light coming in the windows affects the tortoise?

I swear Goosefoot is sleeping more...moving less and also eating less. I will not brumate her until she's older...so I am just watching her behaviour.

And...we have a new baby! I am planning on doing obedience with her. We are already started in puppy classes.

I didn't want another big dog at the moment since I have the AmBull and the Catahoula X...and I didn't want another very small dog...since I have the mini-Dachshund.

So I went for medium...lol:
What a beautiful dog! :)
Increase your lighting to 14 hours a day, offer lots of tempting food and try to get her to exercise a bit more.
Works for Tidgy every year, two weeks and she's back to normal.
 
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Rue

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Thank you! :D I have upped the lighting to 14 hours.

The availability of tempting food is going to become difficult... the PTB are already predicting snow this week (it won't stay on the ground, but it will kill vegetation). So now, outside of what I can maybe grow indoors (and my initial experiments were dismal), we will have to rely on store bought produce. The farmer's market offers a bit of variety, but really, not much more than the chain stores.

This winter she will stay in the little enclosure. I can monitor heat and humidity better in it. I assume growth will slow down over the winter too, even if she's awake. Next spring we will build her a new indoor enclosure. I have various plans that I need to fine-tune to see which will be the easiest to work with (for her and for me - to look after things). I'm thinking an L-shaped corner enclosure will work best.

I didn't have her outside this summer as much as I thought I'd be able to. The weather was great this summer, but somehow not conducive IMO, to baby tortoises. This fall was cool, so I actually haven't had her outside for over 3 weeks now...:(

I probably should get a new UVB bulb soon too.

Puppy is doing well! I am always slow introducing new dogs to established dogs, I think it is a safer way to do it (and easy). So yesterday we had our inaugural all-inclusive dog walk (all 4 of the dogs together) - and it was totally fine. LOL. Now I'll start letting her in interact with them more when they are all loose together...
 

Rue

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Today's weigh-in: 96 grams

A bit up from the last weigh-in of 91 grams (on July 10th). So still growing (yay!) but not as quickly, which I assume is also good. I predict there will be an autumn 'hold' on weight gain, or very minor growth over the winter.

Let's see if my prediction is right.
 
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