Is this Normal ?????

[Milkduds]

Hey everyone I have a Travancore hybrid tortoise and today he’s been acting a little strange he sits on his heating rock under the uvb and sleeps for most of the day later I noticed that his skin looked cracked and dry. I turned off the uvb light thinking that was hurting him Is this normal for him how can I help him??

 

[Hamiltondood]

Hey everyone I have a Travancore hybrid tortoise and today he’s been acting a little strange he sits on his heating rock under the uvb and sleeps for most of the day later I noticed that his skin looked cracked and dry. I turned off the uvb light thinking that was hurting him Is this normal for him how can I help him??

can you send pictures of the bulb and your enclosure? by heating rock, are you talking about a slate..? soak him for 30 minutes every day too. do you have basking bulb?

 

[Milkduds]

can you send pictures of the bulb and your enclosure? by heating rock, are you talking about a slate..? soak him for 30 minutes every day too. do you have basking bulb?

I do not have a basking bulb just a normal uvb and the heating rock is just a normal heating rock I’ll see a photo

 

[Milkduds]

can you send pictures of the bulb and your enclosure? by heating rock, are you talking about a slate..? soak him for 30 minutes every day too. do you have basking bulb?

Also after I soaked him he seemed to look a lot better

 

[Ink]

You should remove the heat rock. @ZEROPILOT

 

[Hamiltondood]

Also after I soaked him he seemed to look a lot better

I agree with Ink. throw that rock away and get an incandescent flood bulb. I use 65 watts. Heat rocks are known to overheat and burn lizards. Basking on a heat rock is not the same as basking under a bulb since they cannot regulate their temperature while using a heat rock.
you should definitely build or buy another enclosure. you can buy a grow tent (50-100 dollars) and flip it on it's side. you can hang the lights inside the tent too.
youre losing about 50% of the uvb since the screen "blocks" a bit of it from passing through. what kind of tortoise do you have? View attachment 308067
this is what @Srmcclure 's enclosure looks like for his redfoot.

 

[Milkduds]

I agree with Ink. throw that rock away and get an incandescent flood bulb. I use 65 watts. Heat rocks are known to overheat and burn lizards. Basking on a heat rock is not the same as basking under a bulb since they cannot regulate their temperature while using a heat rock.
you should definitely build or buy another enclosure. you can buy a grow tent (50-100 dollars) and flip it on it's side. you can hang the lights inside the tent too.
youre losing about 50% of the uvb since the screen "blocks" a bit of it from passing through. what kind of tortoise do you have? View attachment 308067View attachment 308068
this is what @Srmcclure 's enclosure looks like for his redfoot.

I have a Travancore hybrid tortoise

 

[karen1234]

You should remove the heat rock. @ZEROPILOT

yes i agree

 

[zovick]

I have a Travancore hybrid tortoise

Your tortoise would do very well in one of the grow tents like Srmcclure's which Hamiltondood mentioned above.

I was curious where you got your hybrid tortoise because I used to have the only pure Travancores in the US in the 1980's and I do know some people were breeding the females I sold them with Elongated Tortoises because they had no male Travancores. Males were very rare back then. There was only one known in the country for many years, and all the babies that I hatched in the first 10 years turned out to be females. I imported a second male in 2006. In 2008, I turned over the entire breeding project to Mark and Kim Bell of Reptile Industries in FL.

 

[Milkduds]

yes i agree

Ok thanks

 

[Milkduds]

Your tortoise would do very well in one of the grow tents like Srmcclure's which Hamiltondood mentioned above.

I was curious where you got your hybrid tortoise because I used to have the only pure Travancores in the US in the 1980's and I do know some people were breeding the females I sold them with Elongated Tortoises because they had no male Travancores. Males were very rare back then. There was only one known in the country for many years, and all the babies that I hatched in the first 10 years turned out to be females. I imported a second male in 2006. In 2008, I turned over the entire breeding project to Mark and Kim Bell of Reptile Industries.

Thanks this was really helpful

Your tortoise would do very well in one of the grow tents like Srmcclure's which Hamiltondood mentioned above.

I was curious where you got your hybrid tortoise because I used to have the only pure Travancores in the US in the 1980's and I do know some people were breeding the females I sold them with Elongated Tortoises because they had no male Travancores. Males were very rare back then. There was only one known in the country for many years, and all the babies that I hatched in the first 10 years turned out to be females. I imported a second male in 2006. In 2008, I turned over the entire breeding project to Mark and Kim Bell of Reptile Industries in FL.

hey that’s weird I got my Travancore hybrid tortoise from a reptile expo

 

[zovick]

Thanks this was really helpful

hey that’s weird I got my Travancore hybrid tortoise from a reptile expo

Was it the Daytona Expo? Either way, did the seller tell you where it was bred or what % hybrid it is? I am just curious to know if it was one that came from my old bloodlines. Almost all of the ones I bred ended up in FL at the Bell's place and Mark was selling both pure Travancores plus the hybrid ones, both 50% and 66.67% the last I knew.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Also after I soaked him he seemed to look a lot better

Is that an MVB light?
MVB lights and heat rocks are both very bad choices for tortoise keeping.
Heating should come from above. And shouldn't be too harsh.

 

[Milkduds]

Was it the Daytona Expo? Either way, did the seller tell you where it was bred or what % hybrid it is? I am just curious to know if it was one that came from my old bloodlines. Almost all of the ones I bred ended up in FL at the Bell's place and Mark was selling both pure Travancores plus the hybrid ones, both 50% and 66.67% the last I knew.

I have no idea it was a reptile expo in Wisconsin the name tag on the tortoises we Travancore hybrid indotestudo x travancorica

 

[Milkduds]

Is that an MVB light?
MVB lights and heat rocks are both very bad choices for tortoise keeping.
Heating should come from above. And shouldn't be too harsh.

No I don’t think so it’s a zoo-med uvb light And I’m taking out the heat rock. Dose that mean that heat mats are a bad choice to

 

[zovick]

I have no idea it was a reptile expo in Wisconsin the name tag on the tortoises we Travancore hybrid indotestudo x travancorica

OK, thanks. Indotestudo is the genus name. I think you meant to say the name tag was hybrid Indotestudo elongata x tranancorica.

 

[Milkduds]

OK, thanks. Indotestudo is the genus name. I think you meant to say the name tag was hybrid Indotestudo elongata x tranancorica.

Yes I did lol sorry.

 

[Milkduds]

OK, thanks. Indotestudo is the genus name. I think you meant to say the name tag was hybrid Indotestudo elongata x tranancorica.

If you have any tips on how to take care of this little guy i would love to hear them.I have looked up a lot about tortoise and about Travancore but not a lot of people have them so I can’t compare my care thrown to there’s

 

[Milkduds]

If you have any tips on how to take care of this little guy i would love to hear them.I have looked up a lot about tortoise and about Travancore but not a lot of people have them so I can’t compare my care thrown to there’s

I mean routine

 

[zovick]

I mean routine

Well, they are from an area of India where they live in forested, mountainous terrain. They like it fairly damp and not overly hot. I would say that you could set the tortoise's enclosure up like one for a Redfooted Tortoise. They don't bask much if at all, so you may not need a basking light.

If you can find any care info for Elongated and/or Forsten's Tortoises, those would be quite similar. I will see if I can find any care sheets for these three types and if so, I will post links here later tonight or tomorrow.

Here is one link from the Tortoise Trust which is pretty accurate: http://www.tortoisetrust.org/care/celongata.html