Hi there and thanks from London for this excellent resource, (I use no other since found). My family are the still inexperienced owners of a roughly 1 year old Western Hermann. His (short) name is Oogy which gets shortened even further to Oog on occasions, or lengthened to Oogy Boogie. I should know his shell length really, but at a guess he's around 4 inches; I will double check. He is our kid's tortoise, and the kid is diligent enough to potentially do a pretty good job. Still, I spend more time fussing over the tortoise and his enclosure every day than I do with the kid. (He's deep in studying for exams upcoming next Spring).
The picture here shows him after a warm bath, stretching his legs on the artificial lawn just to dry off, but these are rare short excursions under close guard maybe once a month. Apart from those treat outings, he has spent entirety of his time either indoors, or in an outdoor box, which is quite generous sized as a first box, but nothing special. We did benefit from plenty of good weather though. Majority of the time, and most days were spent on an indoor starter table which we are about to replace with a bigger model. He lives in my son's bedroom where it is centrally heated and never gets that cool even at night. We've watched things like surface temps closely and night time to check he has a basking zone, cooler areas etc. But there are always questions (mostly about correct lighting at this point, and a more general one about shell shape/ markings) but as this is the Introduction sub-forum, questions can wait.
So far we've had what I would call a modestly successful first 6-7 months of caring for the little fella, but not with any certainty we are doing it right, rather the fact he's always been quite active, burrows down a little quite happily, responds quickly and heartily to food, takes regular No 2's which appear consistent and not runny etc, enjoys baths and so on, and has shown no grounds for concern at all, but I am aware we are moving into our first winter, so for us the focus is more on improving the indoor enclosure which is in progress.
Thanks in advance for help on any questions elsewhere i may ask, and hope you all have a nice day. My name is Burn.
The picture here shows him after a warm bath, stretching his legs on the artificial lawn just to dry off, but these are rare short excursions under close guard maybe once a month. Apart from those treat outings, he has spent entirety of his time either indoors, or in an outdoor box, which is quite generous sized as a first box, but nothing special. We did benefit from plenty of good weather though. Majority of the time, and most days were spent on an indoor starter table which we are about to replace with a bigger model. He lives in my son's bedroom where it is centrally heated and never gets that cool even at night. We've watched things like surface temps closely and night time to check he has a basking zone, cooler areas etc. But there are always questions (mostly about correct lighting at this point, and a more general one about shell shape/ markings) but as this is the Introduction sub-forum, questions can wait.
So far we've had what I would call a modestly successful first 6-7 months of caring for the little fella, but not with any certainty we are doing it right, rather the fact he's always been quite active, burrows down a little quite happily, responds quickly and heartily to food, takes regular No 2's which appear consistent and not runny etc, enjoys baths and so on, and has shown no grounds for concern at all, but I am aware we are moving into our first winter, so for us the focus is more on improving the indoor enclosure which is in progress.
Thanks in advance for help on any questions elsewhere i may ask, and hope you all have a nice day. My name is Burn.