- Joined
- May 2, 2013
- Messages
- 10
RE: could use a bit of help please
Hi Tom,
This is Joe's wife. I'm posting on his behalf tonight after reading through all of the great advice that everyone has posted so far.
To give you a little background on our little tortoise we met the breeder to pick up the tortoise since we live at least 2 hours away (each way), so we were not able to see the actual setup he had for his hatchlings, other than the photos he sent of his backyard and his outdoor tortoises.
We were told to keep the baby dry, that we should/could use alfalfa pellets for bedding, or that the cypress mulch was fine as long as we kept it dry, and that we should soak the baby every 2-3 days.
From what I have read and your advice I am going to make the assumption that he is indeed a dry breeder and that our little guy/girl may have come to us severely dehydrated.
Also we were told by the breeder that he buys bulk amounts of romaine lettuce, which I gathered is what he also feeds his adult tortoises, and he said that he also adds in his lawn trimmings. From what we have read we didn't feel that this was an adequate diet.
We were also told that we could give the baby spring mix greens, carrot once a month, and that it was ok to give zuchini or squash. And that we only occassionally needed to give him/her a calcium supplement.
From the photos we were sent of his backyard where he keeps his tortoises it looked like there was very little vegetation or grass availabe for free grazing, and it appeared that most of it was covered with pea gravel, I'm going to assume for easy maintenance of his yard. However, I can't imagine that his large adults are getting adequate grazing and nutrition living in the middle of downtown Houston with no real yard to roam around in.
When we picked up the baby I immediately noticed the pyramiding of the shell and was concerned that he had brought us a sick tortoise. However, we had our daughter with us and we had already gone back and forth with the breeder for more than a week about picking up the tortoise, so I didn't want to not take it.
We are working to adjust his temps and humidity. We went today today and got a reliable thermometer/humidity gauge to help us regulate it better. We also picked up a bag of sphagnum moss to put in his hide box because I had read that if you soak it and place it in there it helps to keep the humidity up. I hope this was good advice.
He/she did finally have a bowel movement this morning, once while soaking and then twice inside of the enclosure. We've been spraying the mulch and the tortoise several times throughout the day and it seems to be eating ok, but is still not moving around the enclosure much. It appears that it wants to burrow down in the mulch under the basking lamp and just sleep. It won't voluntarily go to the hidebox on the cool end of the tank and we didn't know if it was a good idea to put a hide box closer to the heat source.
We'll post some updates later in the weekend as we try to get the little guy settled in and get the enclosure adjusted to the proper temps and humidity.
We certainly appreciate all of the great responses and I will take time this weekend to read through the links that you suggested we look at. We are just concerned for our little tortoise and want to make sure that he/she gets off to a great start.
If you have any other thoughts or suggestions please let us know.
Take Care,
Sonseria
Hi Tom,
This is Joe's wife. I'm posting on his behalf tonight after reading through all of the great advice that everyone has posted so far.
To give you a little background on our little tortoise we met the breeder to pick up the tortoise since we live at least 2 hours away (each way), so we were not able to see the actual setup he had for his hatchlings, other than the photos he sent of his backyard and his outdoor tortoises.
We were told to keep the baby dry, that we should/could use alfalfa pellets for bedding, or that the cypress mulch was fine as long as we kept it dry, and that we should soak the baby every 2-3 days.
From what I have read and your advice I am going to make the assumption that he is indeed a dry breeder and that our little guy/girl may have come to us severely dehydrated.
Also we were told by the breeder that he buys bulk amounts of romaine lettuce, which I gathered is what he also feeds his adult tortoises, and he said that he also adds in his lawn trimmings. From what we have read we didn't feel that this was an adequate diet.
We were also told that we could give the baby spring mix greens, carrot once a month, and that it was ok to give zuchini or squash. And that we only occassionally needed to give him/her a calcium supplement.
From the photos we were sent of his backyard where he keeps his tortoises it looked like there was very little vegetation or grass availabe for free grazing, and it appeared that most of it was covered with pea gravel, I'm going to assume for easy maintenance of his yard. However, I can't imagine that his large adults are getting adequate grazing and nutrition living in the middle of downtown Houston with no real yard to roam around in.
When we picked up the baby I immediately noticed the pyramiding of the shell and was concerned that he had brought us a sick tortoise. However, we had our daughter with us and we had already gone back and forth with the breeder for more than a week about picking up the tortoise, so I didn't want to not take it.
We are working to adjust his temps and humidity. We went today today and got a reliable thermometer/humidity gauge to help us regulate it better. We also picked up a bag of sphagnum moss to put in his hide box because I had read that if you soak it and place it in there it helps to keep the humidity up. I hope this was good advice.
He/she did finally have a bowel movement this morning, once while soaking and then twice inside of the enclosure. We've been spraying the mulch and the tortoise several times throughout the day and it seems to be eating ok, but is still not moving around the enclosure much. It appears that it wants to burrow down in the mulch under the basking lamp and just sleep. It won't voluntarily go to the hidebox on the cool end of the tank and we didn't know if it was a good idea to put a hide box closer to the heat source.
We'll post some updates later in the weekend as we try to get the little guy settled in and get the enclosure adjusted to the proper temps and humidity.
We certainly appreciate all of the great responses and I will take time this weekend to read through the links that you suggested we look at. We are just concerned for our little tortoise and want to make sure that he/she gets off to a great start.
If you have any other thoughts or suggestions please let us know.
Take Care,
Sonseria