Hey intro sulcata & burmese mountain tortoise....

[DesignerGenes]

Hey I'm new here, we're new here we have a 5 year old sulcata tortoise named Bob and a 1 year old Burmese Mountain Tortoise named Rufus. Does anyone have any experience with BMT's, it seems ours rarely opens his eyes, we've been giving him vitamin A supplement and using eye drops, plus higher humidity..any other suggestions?


Cheers,

Justine

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Justine and welcome to the Forum!

You've made a common mistake in assuming that your tortoise is not opening his eyes on purpose. What has happened is that the tortoise's eyes are stuck shut. This is usually caused by incorrect husbandry for the type tortoise you are caring for. The Manouria tortoises come from Indonesia and require Jungle-like conditions to thrive. They don't like high light/heat and prefer it to be shady, but warm. So your Manouria tortoise needs a very moist environment, warm conditions with low light. Can you tell us how you have him set up?

 

[DesignerGenes]

We actually knew something was wrong, a friend of ours suggested the Vitamin A supplement and eye drops plus a daily soak as the solution, but I'd like to find out some other options as well. His tank is 20 gallon. We have him on coco fiber with sections of dry moss and we mist his enclosure twice a day, he has a heat pad on one side which he has created a burrow in the coco fiber. He has a small water dish big enough to soak in on the opposite side of the enclosure. We do have a light on him which might be contributing to the problem. He opens his eyes when he is eating but thats about it. HIs diet is a daily mix of greens, fruits and veggies. Mostly dandelion, collard, kale, endive, cucumber, carrots, strawberry, apple, melon, banana, rasppberry/blueberry and we also give him the tortoise mix advertised for redfoots but he doesn't really like that he prefers the fresh stuff.

 

[DesignerGenes]

The light we are using is .5uvb

 

[Yvonne G]

If it is the coiled CFL that might be the eye problem. Those compact coiled bulbs are hard on baby tortoises' eyes and cause snow blindness.

 

[Itort]

I would suggest losing the light. Mine just have whatever light is in the room (subdued). Diet sounds good and come spring you may consider getting him a elephant ear plant (alocassia/colacassia). The substrat sounds good and deep. Lotsa luck with him, they will become puppies.

 

[DesignerGenes]

Okay great thanks! we'll remove the light and see how it goes, if it doesn't get better in the next few weeks ill take him to our exotic vet and see what he says.

Justine

 

[pam]

Welcome

 

[MyrnaBren]

Wow, those are going to be some big guys! Congrats and welcome.

 

[Yellow Turtle]

Hello and welcome Justine. Hope your MBT getting better and better.