In early November I rescued a little Greek tortoise, whom we named Boo. He was being kept in a tiny aquarium indoors without water, with a household bulb, no UV. His bark chips smelled like cigarette smoke. He had a ring drilled into his shell. He was very shy and very skinny. His shell is hard and actually looks good, probably because they kept him outside (tethered by his ring) in the Summer. His beak was terribly overgrown. He is a captive bred 'Antakyan' Greek, hatched Summer 2005 by a Seattle breeder. The old owner got him directly from the breeder as a tiny yearling in 2006. When I got him he was just over 5 inches, and weighed 445g. According to the Jackson Ratio calculator, he is on the light side.
I built him a nice tort table, bought proper lights (tube UVB and basking. Basking temp is now 98-100 degrees, warm side of table is about 82 most days, cool side is 67-70, room temp). I soaked him every day for a week, then 1-2x per week and provided a water dish in his table, good leafy greens (different edible weeds and leaves from my garden, plus some kale, collard greens, etc), supplement w/ TNT and cuttlebone. It has been 9 weeks since I got him.
For the first 4 weeks he barely even touched his food. His old owner only fed him romaine and carrots, sprinkled with calcium. I completely cut out romaine, and gave him more nutritious food... he wouldn't touch it, not cut up, not whole. I didn't trim his beak until around Christmas because he was so scared. He actually LOST weight during those first 4 weeks, but his activity increased, and he became less shy. Now he is slowly starting to eat, he eats dandelion greens and collards fine, sometimes will eat red leaf lettuce, and will eat raspberry leaves if he is in the mood. He rarely finishes the food I give him though. He is now at 450g, so has gained back the weight lost, plus additional 5g. I'm just worried because he is eating so little in comparison to my 4 Russian tortoises? He needs to put on weight, but he never finishes his food!
Any advice? I attached a pic - he's a cute little guy... he should be larger at almost 8 years old... barely over 5 inches.
I built him a nice tort table, bought proper lights (tube UVB and basking. Basking temp is now 98-100 degrees, warm side of table is about 82 most days, cool side is 67-70, room temp). I soaked him every day for a week, then 1-2x per week and provided a water dish in his table, good leafy greens (different edible weeds and leaves from my garden, plus some kale, collard greens, etc), supplement w/ TNT and cuttlebone. It has been 9 weeks since I got him.
For the first 4 weeks he barely even touched his food. His old owner only fed him romaine and carrots, sprinkled with calcium. I completely cut out romaine, and gave him more nutritious food... he wouldn't touch it, not cut up, not whole. I didn't trim his beak until around Christmas because he was so scared. He actually LOST weight during those first 4 weeks, but his activity increased, and he became less shy. Now he is slowly starting to eat, he eats dandelion greens and collards fine, sometimes will eat red leaf lettuce, and will eat raspberry leaves if he is in the mood. He rarely finishes the food I give him though. He is now at 450g, so has gained back the weight lost, plus additional 5g. I'm just worried because he is eating so little in comparison to my 4 Russian tortoises? He needs to put on weight, but he never finishes his food!
Any advice? I attached a pic - he's a cute little guy... he should be larger at almost 8 years old... barely over 5 inches.
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