lookalikehuuh
New Member
Hello All,
Apologies in advance for the wall of text....
I am brand new to this forum, as I found it while frantically searching for answers for my son's little red footed tortoise. We acquired 2 baby red footed tortoises for my 9 year old son back in June of this year. My son is very responsible and is already in charge of feeding our 2 family dogs in the evenings. Initially they were both around the same size but one has definitely grown much faster than the other. They are named Deadpool (smaller one) and Wolverine (Larger one), kids picked the name
They both currently live in a zoo med Tortoise box. We have a bowl for their food, separate bowl with shallow amounts of purified drinking water that we soak them in 2x a day. There is a heater lamp with a small hiding area on one side and a UVB light in the middle of the mesh enclosure side. No heating pads or anything like that. We do have a "repti fogger" to help keep humidity levels up since we were struggling with keeping humidity above 50% even when spraying the substrate down multiple times a day.
Daily diet wise we provide them with lots of leavfy greens like Kale, green leaf lettuce etc, we also include a bit of yellow squash, bell peppers, cucumber, and a fruit like strawberries or blueberries (every other day for the fruit). About once every week we do provide them some protein, usually in the form of pre-packaged superworms. We would always sprinkle all of the food with the Rephasy superfoods superveggie powder. We also have a cuddlebone as well as a calcium block in the enclosure (although I have never seen them touch either of them).
On Monday based on recommendation from the same reptile shop where we purchased the tortoises we provided them with 2 frozen pinky mice instead of the superworms we usually feed for their protein. 1 of the pinkies was fully consumed and parts of the 2nd one were also consumed. We aren't sure which one of the 2 tortoises consumed the pinkies since we were out of the house dropping the kids off at school and when we returned both were back in their hideout digesting.
In the mornings we do water/food changes every day before the kids leave for school. As soon as Deadpool would see us remove the food bowl he would come out of the hideout and wait for the new food to be placed back in. My son would then soak both the tortoises and Deadpool would then bolt to the food while Wolverine woudl go back to his hideout and would come out later in the morning to eat. Yesterday we noticed that Deadpool wasn't actively moving around like he normally would in the morning. Deadpool is the early riser and Wolverine is the lazy haha! We just figured maybe he had a late night and would start moving around later. My son did his ritual of placing both tortoises in their shallow pool of water for their nightime soak but i noticed Deadpool had not moved from it. Usually he will soak for like 30sec to a min and runs out then immediately runs to the food bowl to eat, its his routine.
Since then Deadpool really hasn't moved from where we place him and his head/legs are just out of the shell and laying on the substrate. I did notice his shell is much softer than Wolverine's shell which I hadn't really noticed before, I've been doing some reading and it sounds like MBD, but its really strange that 1 of them is apparently thriving while the other is apparently near death. My wife did mention that Deadpools shell had felt somewhat soft about a week ago but when I went to feel it, it felt pretty hard to me. So maybe I missed something that day? I mean they eat the same foods, in the same enclosure, lighting, same schedule. Kind of racking my brain thinking of what we did wrong. The only thing that was different was those pinky mice we provided them on Monday, could that have caused Wolverine's issues maybe an intestinal blockage or something?
I am afraid it might be too late for us to save Deadpool, but can anyone suggest what we have done wrong so we can help keep Wolverine healthy for the long run? We are considering taking Wolverine to the vet to see if there is anything they can help us with but we also don't want to spend money needlessly if there isn't going to be anything a vet can do for Deadpool.
I've included 2 pics, 1 of the enclosure setup and another of the 2 tortoises next to each other. You can see Deadpool on top with his beak on the floor and his front legs just laying there. Below you see Wolverine wondering why I pulled him out of his comfy hiding spot.
Apologies in advance for the wall of text....
I am brand new to this forum, as I found it while frantically searching for answers for my son's little red footed tortoise. We acquired 2 baby red footed tortoises for my 9 year old son back in June of this year. My son is very responsible and is already in charge of feeding our 2 family dogs in the evenings. Initially they were both around the same size but one has definitely grown much faster than the other. They are named Deadpool (smaller one) and Wolverine (Larger one), kids picked the name
They both currently live in a zoo med Tortoise box. We have a bowl for their food, separate bowl with shallow amounts of purified drinking water that we soak them in 2x a day. There is a heater lamp with a small hiding area on one side and a UVB light in the middle of the mesh enclosure side. No heating pads or anything like that. We do have a "repti fogger" to help keep humidity levels up since we were struggling with keeping humidity above 50% even when spraying the substrate down multiple times a day.
Daily diet wise we provide them with lots of leavfy greens like Kale, green leaf lettuce etc, we also include a bit of yellow squash, bell peppers, cucumber, and a fruit like strawberries or blueberries (every other day for the fruit). About once every week we do provide them some protein, usually in the form of pre-packaged superworms. We would always sprinkle all of the food with the Rephasy superfoods superveggie powder. We also have a cuddlebone as well as a calcium block in the enclosure (although I have never seen them touch either of them).
On Monday based on recommendation from the same reptile shop where we purchased the tortoises we provided them with 2 frozen pinky mice instead of the superworms we usually feed for their protein. 1 of the pinkies was fully consumed and parts of the 2nd one were also consumed. We aren't sure which one of the 2 tortoises consumed the pinkies since we were out of the house dropping the kids off at school and when we returned both were back in their hideout digesting.
In the mornings we do water/food changes every day before the kids leave for school. As soon as Deadpool would see us remove the food bowl he would come out of the hideout and wait for the new food to be placed back in. My son would then soak both the tortoises and Deadpool would then bolt to the food while Wolverine woudl go back to his hideout and would come out later in the morning to eat. Yesterday we noticed that Deadpool wasn't actively moving around like he normally would in the morning. Deadpool is the early riser and Wolverine is the lazy haha! We just figured maybe he had a late night and would start moving around later. My son did his ritual of placing both tortoises in their shallow pool of water for their nightime soak but i noticed Deadpool had not moved from it. Usually he will soak for like 30sec to a min and runs out then immediately runs to the food bowl to eat, its his routine.
Since then Deadpool really hasn't moved from where we place him and his head/legs are just out of the shell and laying on the substrate. I did notice his shell is much softer than Wolverine's shell which I hadn't really noticed before, I've been doing some reading and it sounds like MBD, but its really strange that 1 of them is apparently thriving while the other is apparently near death. My wife did mention that Deadpools shell had felt somewhat soft about a week ago but when I went to feel it, it felt pretty hard to me. So maybe I missed something that day? I mean they eat the same foods, in the same enclosure, lighting, same schedule. Kind of racking my brain thinking of what we did wrong. The only thing that was different was those pinky mice we provided them on Monday, could that have caused Wolverine's issues maybe an intestinal blockage or something?
I am afraid it might be too late for us to save Deadpool, but can anyone suggest what we have done wrong so we can help keep Wolverine healthy for the long run? We are considering taking Wolverine to the vet to see if there is anything they can help us with but we also don't want to spend money needlessly if there isn't going to be anything a vet can do for Deadpool.
I've included 2 pics, 1 of the enclosure setup and another of the 2 tortoises next to each other. You can see Deadpool on top with his beak on the floor and his front legs just laying there. Below you see Wolverine wondering why I pulled him out of his comfy hiding spot.
