Hides, and torts who don't use them...

[adsum]

Toto has a variety of hides available to her. She chooses not to use them though. She prefers to simply bury herself when she is ready to go to sleep at night. During the day she mostly basks with all 4 legs, and her head, stretched out. The hides take up a fair amount of floor space and since she doesn't seem interested- I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to remove the hides and use the squarefootage to provide some plants and other landscaping instead.

 

[ascott]

be better to remove the hides and use the squarefootage to provide some plants and other landscaping instead.

I think this would be a brilliant idea, especially since your tort is not interested.....IMHO

 

[lynnedit]

You could cut back on the hides. It is nice to have them, but most of us watch what our torts do, and make changes based on that. More floor space is never bad.
Maybe a fake plant embedded in the soil? That he can dislodge every night, lol?
Or a large rock with soil mounded around it?
Or just a good, deep area of soil.

 

[dmmj]

I would not get rid of all of them, depending on how many you have, I would keep one or two.

 

[Tony the tank]

Tony my lg male sulcata has a hide but doesn't use it..preferring to sleep smack in the middle of his enclosure every night..

 

[cherylim]

In my own experience, it's not about a tortoise not liking a hide.

I bought a very expensive table with a hide built in, and Emrys didn't use it. Rather than concluding that he didn't want a hide, I dismantled the table and removed it and purchased something else to use as a hide instead. Still no luck.

I then purchased a third hide (a simple plastic plant pot), cut it in half and created a bunker out of it. Still nothing. I spent a week or two moving that hide to various places in his table, and eventually found a spot where he started to use it.

He's used it almost every night since. It's not that he didn't want a hide - it's that he didn't feel completely safe or happy where it was. I think perseverance is key to finding the right place/hide.

 

[Lulu]

I have tortoises that prefer to bury themselves and for them I provide deeper areas of soil. I've also used hay, but it needs to be changed every once in awhile and watched near heat sources so that it does not become a fire hazard. I still usually provide one hide and move it around, but I still have torts that don't like them.

 

[JoesMum]

Joe uses his hide... sort of. More often than not, he digs under one side of it, so his body is in the hide and his head and front legs outside... go figure!

 

[dmarcus]

My two smaller sulcatas both haves hides available to them, sometimes they use them and sometimes they don't. I think you should leave atleast one hide, and take the others out.