Hello!
My name is Nina, I'm a first time tortoise owner and I live in Oakland, California. I got my Greek tortoise, the Countess, from the East Bay Vivarium. She is approximately 7 to 10 years of age, and appears to be perfectly healthy (she has no pyramiding, her skin looks fine, and there are no problems with her nose and eyes: all things that I read to look for). I don't have any information on her previous owners or parents. We brought her to her new home 6 days ago. She lives in a rather large tortoise table (2.5' by 4') with a small upper deck (1' by 2.5'). She has two heating lamps (150W and 100W) and a UVB lamp. Her enclosure is about 95 degrees at the hot end and 70 in the coldest part of her enclosure. The substrate is a mixture of peat moss and orchid mix (wood chips) with a top layer of cypress mulch. When we brought her home she immediately dug in under her ramp (which serves as her hide in the warmer side of the enclosure, she also has a larger hide in the other end but she never goes in there). Every once in a while she comes out from under the lamp to warm up, but she spends 90% of the time hiding. She hasn't touched her food, so we were worried she might be getting dehydrated. Two days ago we gave her a bath so she could soak and drink. She peed, and released a fair amount of urates (cottage cheesy consistency, not chalky). That means she's dehydrated but not dangerously dehydrated, right? I've been refreshing her food every day, it usually consists of some spring mix, some weeds (plantain, mallow, or dandelion), wildflowers (bachelor's button and clover), and some prickly pear pads. So far she hasn't touched it. I even put a sliced strawberry to entice her (I know that they are not supposed to eat a lot of fruit, but I saw her eating it at the pet store and it might be like a familiar comfort food to her, she didn't eat it though). I stopped putting her calcium and multivitamins on it in case she wasn't eating because it tasted bad, but that didn't work either. I know it takes some tortoises a while to get used to their surroundings, but 6 days seems like a long time. We've been doing our best not to touch her and to give her some space.
I can paste photos... but I got to run
My name is Nina, I'm a first time tortoise owner and I live in Oakland, California. I got my Greek tortoise, the Countess, from the East Bay Vivarium. She is approximately 7 to 10 years of age, and appears to be perfectly healthy (she has no pyramiding, her skin looks fine, and there are no problems with her nose and eyes: all things that I read to look for). I don't have any information on her previous owners or parents. We brought her to her new home 6 days ago. She lives in a rather large tortoise table (2.5' by 4') with a small upper deck (1' by 2.5'). She has two heating lamps (150W and 100W) and a UVB lamp. Her enclosure is about 95 degrees at the hot end and 70 in the coldest part of her enclosure. The substrate is a mixture of peat moss and orchid mix (wood chips) with a top layer of cypress mulch. When we brought her home she immediately dug in under her ramp (which serves as her hide in the warmer side of the enclosure, she also has a larger hide in the other end but she never goes in there). Every once in a while she comes out from under the lamp to warm up, but she spends 90% of the time hiding. She hasn't touched her food, so we were worried she might be getting dehydrated. Two days ago we gave her a bath so she could soak and drink. She peed, and released a fair amount of urates (cottage cheesy consistency, not chalky). That means she's dehydrated but not dangerously dehydrated, right? I've been refreshing her food every day, it usually consists of some spring mix, some weeds (plantain, mallow, or dandelion), wildflowers (bachelor's button and clover), and some prickly pear pads. So far she hasn't touched it. I even put a sliced strawberry to entice her (I know that they are not supposed to eat a lot of fruit, but I saw her eating it at the pet store and it might be like a familiar comfort food to her, she didn't eat it though). I stopped putting her calcium and multivitamins on it in case she wasn't eating because it tasted bad, but that didn't work either. I know it takes some tortoises a while to get used to their surroundings, but 6 days seems like a long time. We've been doing our best not to touch her and to give her some space.
I can paste photos... but I got to run