Pearly's RF babies loving their bath!

[Pearly]

I thought I'd create this thread for those who struggle with this very important component of tort keeping. My babies ideal water temp seems to be between 95 and 103F. If they had a long outing that day past the sunset where their core temp went down a bit, I refresh their bath water enough times to keep them in there until their my temp gun reads at least 90-91 on their carapace. They will both turn 2 yrs old in this June and I have gone down on bath frequency from daily in first year to every other day in the second year. our Central Market produce dept. is pretty awesome, better than the one of Whole Foods. They offer all kinds of exotic fruits/veggies/greens/shrooms, I at times buy some organic salad flowers for my babies. I have plenty of flowers in my garden but all of the 100% organically started and grown will be in bloom in few weeks. The ones blooming now are from commercial nurseries treated with stuff. I typically put some treats in the shallow side of the tub and most of the times they do some munching thus associating bath time with some tasty treats. they like to walk around some but when ready to just sit and chill they tend to choose the drain side of the tub where the water is pretty deep. Now, I didn't always have that much water in their bath, only started doing it once I noticed they seemed to enjoy the feeling of buoyancy. I would NOT do that if I couldn't be there to supervise them the whole time.

 

[SarahChelonoidis]

Quite the beautiful feast in the tub. Do they really eat that much in the bath?

I like the space and varying water depths that the tub offers, but my pipes aren't forgiving enough to accidentally let some tortoise poop go down the drain. Do you have a sieve you catch their waste with before draining the tub?

Lovely photos. You've done a great job with those two.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Both of those are really very nice, but the colors on the Cherryhead are really spectacular.
Where do you get "salad" flowers?

 

[Pearly]

Quite the beautiful feast in the tub. Do they really eat that much in the bath?

I like the space and varying water depths that the tub offers, but my pipes aren't forgiving enough to accidentally let some tortoise poop go down the drain. Do you have a sieve you catch their waste with before draining the tub?

Lovely photos. You've done a great job with those two.

Nah! Never! I always put the uneaten stuff on their feeding stone in their "bedroom tank". They sometimes munch some more before bedtime. And yes!!!! Catching the poo in bath water!!!!! Uggghhh!!!! Not fun catching! But gotta be done, otherwise you gotta deal with the plumbing... yes, the little sieve works great

 

[Anyfoot]

They bath better than the Romans did.

When you get chance pearls can you do a thread showing your Brazilian in stages of growth please. I want to see how the marbling grew from a baby.

 

[Pearly]

Both of those are really very nice, but the colors on the Cherryhead are really spectacular.
Where do you get "salad" flowers?

Thank you, Ed. We have a grocery supermarket here called HEB, similar to Publix. This HEB chain has a gourmet offshoot called Central Market which is all about organics, natural, healthy, diverse, different ethnic....etc. they often sell microgreens, forest mushrooms, all kinds of fresh seafood, and they back couple dozen of different preservative free breads, cakes, cookies, muffins... they have several delis making smoothies, fresh squeezed juices, cook fresh soups daily and there is a patio restaurant with great outdoor kids/dogs' area. They often sell fresh salad flowers like the ones on the pic, or pumpkin, squash blooms. That place is ½ hr drive from my house but we make our weekly "pilgrimage" there for our good bread, butter, cheeses and tortoise munchies

 

[Pearly]

Quite the beautiful feast in the tub. Do they really eat that much in the bath?

I like the space and varying water depths that the tub offers, but my pipes aren't forgiving enough to accidentally let some tortoise poop go down the drain. Do you have a sieve you catch their waste with before draining the tub?

Lovely photos. You've done a great job with those two.

Also meant to thank you for such nice compliment. And one more thing to add about the amt of food. As I have stated in some other threads, being completely ignorant about tortoise keeping, I had made one of the common mistakes so many do: got a pair! While having plenty of room for the big outdoor space to keep more than one, while still babies, I really wanted to stick with one indoor set up, one fogger, one set of lamps, one mess to clean up... One of my beliefs on pet keeping is that aggression is always less likely with overabundance of resources like food, water, places to hide, places to bask, places to play, etc. I had been able to keep betta fish in community tanks that way. Now, I'm always prepared for immediate separation at any given time, but so far this has not been necessary. With these two (Shellie and Tucker) I've been physically putting them in front of big pile of food, several times a day, and I try to stick around watching them eat. I know this is far from natural behavior but they are captive bred and are destined to stay within my Polish crazy about feeding everybody family, so natural or not, they should be fine

 

[Pearly]

They bath better than the Romans did.

When you get chance pearls can you do a thread showing your Brazilian in stages of growth please. I want to see how the marbling grew from a baby.

Hah! Right?! I'll have to look for his early baby pics, may need to get on my dreaded desktop computer where all of the pics are stored on hard drive to do that but will definitely do that. I have actually been curious about that too and looking around for visual of a growth stages in marbled torts. I think Tucker is about to start getting much darker, which is a shame, bcs that white on him was very nice.

 

[Anyfoot]

Hah! Right?! I'll have to look for his early baby pics, may need to get on my dreaded desktop computer where all of the pics are stored on hard drive to do that but will definitely do that. I have actually been curious about that too and looking around for visual of a growth stages in marbled torts. I think Tucker is about to start getting much darker, which is a shame, bcs that white on him was very nice.

I was told they rarely marble into their 3rd yr. Yours looks to have stopped marbling now. She will always look cool though.

 

[Pearly]

I was told they rarely marble into their 3rd yr. Yours looks to have stopped marbling now. She will always look cool though.

Really? So past 3 yrs no more white color?

 

[Anyfoot]

Really? So past 3 yrs no more white colorll?

That's the likely hood so I was told. I keep looking out for marbled Brazilians to see if it is the case. Look at Carl's Darth maul, you can see where she stopped marbling.
@cdmay is this something you've noticed?

 

[TammyJ]

They look a treat, and are enjoying a luxurious treat! Very nice.

 

[Bee62]

Pearly, your torts are beautiful and cute!
You are a very good tort mummy. I am sure your RF love their bath with such nice treats all around them.
Please keep us updated with pics and more. I enjoy it very much !