- Joined
- Sep 6, 2010
- Messages
- 5
Hello, we just joined this forum and we were looking for some advice on the habitat, diet, and health of ourtortoise. We have a female Redfooted tortoise. Her name is Speedy. She is approximately 6 years old but we got her when she was already 3 years old.
Her current enclosure is in a large aquarium with a plexiglass cover. She has a hide in one corner, water and food dish, and UVB, and heat lamp in the other corner. With substrate deep enough for her to dig in covering the bottom. However the aquarium is falling apart. We are looking to invest a decent amount of money into a new habitat but are not sure what is the greatest route to take. We have thought of building her one out of wood, or converting a peice of furniture into a home for her. Any suggestions? We are constantly having problems with humidity. Although we spray the aquarium down with warm water a few times every day the humidity does not stay high enough. I used to have a fog machine but it didn't work the greatest either. Since she does get dry, we have some conditioning lotion which I bought from a pet store that we put on her skin and shell every once and a while.
When we first bought Speedy from a pet store they told us that the only thing that she would eat was spring mix. We learned later on when our tortoise started pyramiding that this was not a good idea. We now feed her mostly greens (beets, dandelion etc.) and lots of fruit (strawberries, rasberries, grapes, blueberries, honey dew, cantelope, mango, watermelon, honey dew, apples, peaces, nectarines, banana). We have Exo-terra adult tortoise pellets which we give her once every few weeks for protein. We also put calcium with vitamin D powder on her food however she doesn't seem to like it. We can only put very little on her food or she will not eat her food at all. She also gets a cuttle bone every once in a while for her beak.
The pyramidding has seemed to have stopped but we are still worried about it. Is there anything else that we can do to prevent pyramidding from happening or to reverse the pyramidding? Also we noticed earlier today a weird peice of discoloured skin on the upper part of her eye which looked kind of gooey. I was worried that she had an eye infection but a few minutes later I looked again and it was gone?
I have attatched a few pictures of my tortoise and my enclosure for everyone to check out and give opinions on.
~Kerri, Doug, and Speedy
Here are the rest of the pictures.
Her current enclosure is in a large aquarium with a plexiglass cover. She has a hide in one corner, water and food dish, and UVB, and heat lamp in the other corner. With substrate deep enough for her to dig in covering the bottom. However the aquarium is falling apart. We are looking to invest a decent amount of money into a new habitat but are not sure what is the greatest route to take. We have thought of building her one out of wood, or converting a peice of furniture into a home for her. Any suggestions? We are constantly having problems with humidity. Although we spray the aquarium down with warm water a few times every day the humidity does not stay high enough. I used to have a fog machine but it didn't work the greatest either. Since she does get dry, we have some conditioning lotion which I bought from a pet store that we put on her skin and shell every once and a while.
When we first bought Speedy from a pet store they told us that the only thing that she would eat was spring mix. We learned later on when our tortoise started pyramiding that this was not a good idea. We now feed her mostly greens (beets, dandelion etc.) and lots of fruit (strawberries, rasberries, grapes, blueberries, honey dew, cantelope, mango, watermelon, honey dew, apples, peaces, nectarines, banana). We have Exo-terra adult tortoise pellets which we give her once every few weeks for protein. We also put calcium with vitamin D powder on her food however she doesn't seem to like it. We can only put very little on her food or she will not eat her food at all. She also gets a cuttle bone every once in a while for her beak.
The pyramidding has seemed to have stopped but we are still worried about it. Is there anything else that we can do to prevent pyramidding from happening or to reverse the pyramidding? Also we noticed earlier today a weird peice of discoloured skin on the upper part of her eye which looked kind of gooey. I was worried that she had an eye infection but a few minutes later I looked again and it was gone?
I have attatched a few pictures of my tortoise and my enclosure for everyone to check out and give opinions on.
~Kerri, Doug, and Speedy
Here are the rest of the pictures.
