New Baby Egyption Tortoise Care

[Salspi]

Cole, absolutely beautiful colors on your little guy. Best I’ve seen in my opinion.

 

[TortoiseHerder]

Mine hatched June 15th & 19th respectively. What’s funny is they stick together and they don’t go into their “humid hide” but rather get right next to one of the fake plants and stay their. At least that’s what I notice when I get home. I do feed them every other day before I go to work and they find it. When I am home I do notice they are more active in the early part of the day but then stop being so around noonish. My ambient temperature is around 85.

 

[Longhorns1187]

Cole, absolutely beautiful colors on your little guy. Best I’ve seen in my opinion.

Thanks Sal! It'll be interesting to see how much his shell colors change over the years.

These guys are an absolute joy to watch as they go about their daily activities. So glad we went with this particular species, although my wife is really pushing for a Mt. Etna locale Western Hermann's next...lol.

 

[Longhorns1187]

Mine hatched June 15th & 19th respectively. What’s funny is they stick together and they don’t go into their “humid hide” but rather get right next to one of the fake plants and stay their. At least that’s what I notice when I get home. I do feed them every other day before I go to work and they find it. When I am home I do notice they are more active in the early part of the day but then stop being so around noonish. My ambient temperature is around 85.

Our little guy has never used any of his humid hides, as a resting or sleeping quarters. He'll go in and out of them while exploring, but like yours, he prefers to sleep tucked up under one of the fake succulents. He is definitely most active before noon, but he's more active later and later into the day now. He usually shuts it down by 5-5:30 pm. Here's a few photos of him dozing off while basking.

 

[TortoiseHerder]

Our little guy has never used any of his humid hides, as a resting or sleeping quarters. He'll go in and out of them while exploring, but like yours, he prefers to sleep tucked up under one of the fake succulents. He is definitely most active before noon, but he's more active later and later into the day now. He usually shuts it down by 5-5:30 pm. Here's a few photos of him dozing off while basking. View attachment 249726View attachment 249727

Well you’ve made me feel better. I was wondering if I was doing something wrong.

I am considering changing out their bedding for the Decomposed Granite, Sand, Top Soil mix because I’ve noticed the crushed oyster shell is too powdery. Everywhere they walk they get covered in the powder. Yours doesn’t look covered in powder. I do have a cuttle bone in their enclosure to eat on if they want.

I also can’t think of names for them. That’s the hardest part.

 

[ShirleyTX]

@TortoiseHerder , so glad you found this forum. It will be fun watching your tortoises, @Salspi "s King Tut and Cleopatra, and @Longhorns1187 's Teeny Tiny grow up together. I got my tort from Chris as well, in June; but my tort was born in April 2014 so I guess she is a "sub-adult"? I was hesitant to try a hatchling so I was happy that Chris had an older Egyptian available.

 

[Longhorns1187]

Well you’ve made me feel better. I was wondering if I was doing something wrong.

I am considering changing out their bedding for the Decomposed Granite, Sand, Top Soil mix because I’ve noticed the crushed oyster shell is too powdery. Everywhere they walk they get covered in the powder. Yours doesn’t look covered in powder. I do have a cuttle bone in their enclosure to eat on if they want.

I also can’t think of names for them. That’s the hardest part.

We run a Mistking automated misting system in our Egyptian tortoise enclosure, so that helps keeps the dust/powder from the crushed oyster shell to a minimum. The misting runs for about a minute and 15 seconds, 2 hours apart, in the early morning hours. I have heard of people giving the substrate a good rinse and letting it dry out, or baking it in the oven for 30 minutes at 250 degrees.

Yep... coming up with names is never easy, especially tough if you have many animals.

Did you mention earlier you keep skinks?

 

[TortoiseHerder]

Yes, I have two skinks. I caught one inside my apartment last year and a few months ago a coworker caught one and gave it to me.

 

[Longhorns1187]

Yes, I have two skinks. I caught one inside my apartment last year and a few months ago a coworker caught one and gave it to me.

Skinks are pretty awesome creatures. We have a northern blue tongue, a pink tongue, and a monkey tailed skink. Potentially looking to add a Berber skink to round out the collection.

 

[TortoiseHerder]

Here are mine. Like I said, these were found where I live. The smaller one was inside my apartment and I caught when doing laundry. I should also mention that I have a toad that lives in their as well since they live around my apartment.

 

[Salspi]

The monkey tailed skinks are my fave

 

[Longhorns1187]

The monkey tailed skinks are my fave

She is probably my favorite right now (don't tell the others...lol). Both her and our blue tongue come to the front glass to be let out of their enclosures. They seem to really enjoy the immediate outside world. Our pink tongue is getting close to that point. We've spent literally hundreds of hours working with them to be hand tame. It's a good thing, because monkey tailed skinks have a strong bite.