Health concerns

[torymcbarnes]

We got two baby Hermanns three weeks ago. One is super active and the other is not. I am very worried & very new to tortoise ownership. We read lots of books prior to adopting. But this baby has been sleeping a lot this week. And not really eating much. Please help!!!

 

[Yvonne G]

It might just be a case of aggression. When you have only two tortoises in the same enclosure, it means you have a dominant and a submissive. It's always the case when there are two. So because tortoises are territorial, and don't want other tortoises in their territory, your dominant tortoise is constantly telling the submissive tortoise to get out of his territory. But poor little submissive has no way to get out. . . he's stuck there. So what he does instead, is to hide all the time, stop eating, stay in a corner and simply try to not call attention to himself. Signs of dominance are often misconstrued as "getting along." Things like snuggling together to sleep, following, sitting on the food, peeing on the food, these are all signs of aggression.

Mr. Submissive needs his own enclosure. After living alone for a couple weeks, with daily soaks, and the correct temperature, etc. you will see a marked difference in his activity.