Purposeful variation in habitat temps

[biochemnerd808]

Interesting observation. Outside, on hot summer days, when a cloud passes over, the adult and juvenile tortoises often come out and walk around, eat, drink, then go hide again when the cloud passes.

I decided to mirror the situation in my closed chamber baby habitat, where I have the basking lamp (but not the UV tube light) cycle off for 15 mins 2x during the afternoon (1 peg in my analog timer).

Sure enough. The babies come out of their humid hide and start walking around and eating. Every time.

That slight temporary drop in ambient temp might be important. What do you think?

Baby pic for cute tax.

 

[wellington]

Interesting.
Maybe all species babies need more plant cover than the very few we always recommend it for, like the RF.
Seeing babies can be easy prey, maybe the low light makes them feel like they are under more coverage than in the bright light.
Just a thought.

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

That's interesting. And maybe dimming thermostats for the basking bulbs are not that bad either (when set with a high temperature difference).

With Russian tortoises this can be an expected behaviour (warning, a pure speculation here): in their natural habitat under full sun they can cook before they find a hide, but on cloudy days they have an opportunity to safely forage for food. On the other hand, I would expect the same behaviour from other reptile species, but I haven't seen skinks or agamas more often on cloudy days (I have some wild ones in my yard). And my RF's behaviour is the same on sunny and cloudy days (so it's probably more about temperatures than light spectrum/intensity).

An off-topic question: you don't use UVB lamps for hatchlings, why? A link to YT or post would be just fine.

 

[biochemnerd808]

Interesting.
Maybe all species babies need more plant cover than the very few we always recommend it for, like the RF.
Seeing babies can be easy prey, maybe the low light makes them feel like they are under more coverage than in the bright light.
Just a thought.

Yeah, I agree. I do have several potted plants in there, as well as magnolia leaves, and the ubiquitous pile o' weeds. But offering timed lower light times as well as little shade zones throughout that don't quite qualify as hides could be worth investigating.

 

[biochemnerd808]

That's interesting. And maybe dimming thermostats for the basking bulbs are not that bad either (when set with a high temperature difference).

With Russian tortoises this can be an expected behaviour (warning, a pure speculation here): in their natural habitat under full sun they can cook before they find a hide, but on cloudy days they have an opportunity to safely forage for food. On the other hand, I would expect the same behaviour from other reptile species, but I haven't seen skinks or agamas more often on cloudy days (I have some wild ones in my yard). And my RF's behaviour is the same on sunny and cloudy days (so it's probably more about temperatures than light spectrum/intensity).

An off-topic question: you don't use UVB lamps for hatchlings, why? A link to YT or post would be just fine.

I soak my hatchlings for 30 mins in natural morning sun for the main source of UV. But I also have a UV tube light in the baby habitat that cycles on for 3hrs in the afternoon. Something about the light spectrum makes them eat better when it's on. They all chow down in the morning, but without some UV in the afternoon, they seem to just hide out. I guess an old, depleted UV tube might do the trick. But regardless, my babies grow super smooth, and have nice hard shells, so I'm not going to start eliminating things at this point.

 

[Tom]

Interesting observation. Outside, on hot summer days, when a cloud passes over, the adult and juvenile tortoises often come out and walk around, eat, drink, then go hide again when the cloud passes.

I decided to mirror the situation in my closed chamber baby habitat, where I have the basking lamp (but not the UV tube light) cycle off for 15 mins 2x during the afternoon (1 peg in my analog timer).

Sure enough. The babies come out of their humid hide and start walking around and eating. Every time.

That slight temporary drop in ambient temp might be important. What do you think?

Baby pic for cute tax.
View attachment 373546

That's fascinating. I've never noticed that here, but we don't get many clouds during the warmer weather. I do notice babies always hide mid day and seldom expose themselves.

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

I soak my hatchlings for 30 mins in natural morning sun for the main source of UV. But I also have a UV tube light in the baby habitat that cycles on for 3hrs in the afternoon. Something about the light spectrum makes them eat better when it's on. They all chow down in the morning, but without some UV in the afternoon, they seem to just hide out. I guess an old, depleted UV tube might do the trick. But regardless, my babies grow super smooth, and have nice hard shells, so I'm not going to start eliminating things at this point.

Maybe they react to UVA from the tube as they can perceive it.

Thank you for sharing this observation! Always interesting to learn something new.