Redfoot reducing food intake

Vintage

New Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2019
Messages
26
Location (City and/or State)
Toronto
I have a 2 year old who has been gradually going off of her food. When I first got her she was eating some or all of her food every day. Now she is tapering off her food intake and barely touches the food now. She shows no sign of any illness (I soak her for about 45 minutes per day, she is active while soaking) and there hasn't been any change to her closed enclosure, temps (80-85) or humidity (90%+). She gets two hours of UVA/B per day with a long bulb. When I soak her, she poops most days. One day after pooping she turned around and ate the poop.

So far I've been offering her food every day. I give greens on one day, fruit with a bit of calcium/d3 powder the next day, a variety of vegetables (grated squash, carrot, chopped cucumber etc.) on another day. I usually mix some protein in with the vegetable feeding, like canned tuna, shrimp fish food pellets (soaked), or baby food chicken. I mix some moistened Rep-cal pellets in all feedings except the protein. Yesterday's feeding was greens, she wouldn't touch it.

I'm wondering if I should be offering food every day, every second day, or? One of the care sheets here advises feeding only every second or third day. Or should I be increasing the hours of visible light (6 per day currently) or temperature?
 

pawsplus

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Joined
Aug 28, 2020
Messages
226
Location (City and/or State)
Nashville, TN
What do you mean by 6 hours a day of visible light? It's otherwise dark? You want 10-12 hours of light. Not bright light--as forest torts, they don't like that. But light of some sort.
 

Vintage

New Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2019
Messages
26
Location (City and/or State)
Toronto
What do you mean by 6 hours a day of visible light? It's otherwise dark? You want 10-12 hours of light. Not bright light--as forest torts, they don't like that. But light of some sort.

Sorry, I wrote 6 hours but I meant 9. By "visible light" I just meant non-UVA/UVB, I have a separate long bulb for that. I just use a household LED bulb for the regular light, it's mounted in one corner of the enclosure so that there are different levels of light for her to choose from. Anyway I increased the time to 11 hours. Even when the light is off, the lid of her enclosure is yellow translucent plastic so she still gets a bit of light.

I'm still wondering how often to feed her. One care sheet here says every day, the other says every two or three days. I was feeding her every day and then she started eating a lot less. Now I skip every third day, and she's eating more on the days she gets food.
 
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