Skin and shell health questions

[Roo1802]

Hello,

My horsefield tortoise is 11 years old, he's been living with my parents for the last 2 years whilst i've been travelling. Having him back again is lovely but I'm suddenly feeling very rusty on my tortoise knowledge and paranoid about the health of his skin/shell/leg strength.

I just wanted to get some general advice on how he looks and if there's anything i should be doing differently based on the pictures and info provided.

I feed him a handful of leaves and flowers everyday. This tends to consist of a mix of campanula flowers, sow thistle, lambs lettuce, water cress. Sometimes a bit of cress, romaine lettuce and dandelions. Sometimes mallows and other safe flowers i find on my walks.

He gets a soak every 2-3 days and has access to water. See below photo of his tort table with mercury vapour uva/ubv heat bulb. The temperature gets to about 28-30 degrees in the day and drops to 16 at night time.

He does have a space outside but recently its been getting colder and so he's been spending more time indoors. I let him roam around on the floor to stretch his legs and look for scattered food.

Some days he's super active and keen to get out - like literally scaling the walls! Other days he's very chill and just basks under the lamp. Not sure how normal either of these behaviours are?

I've noticed when he walks he doesn't always lift his shell completely off the floor as well which makes me wonder if his legs could be stronger..

I've also noticed pale dislocation on the scales on his nose and legs - again not sure how normal this is.

Any advice greatly appreciated. I just want to do right by him and also start preparing him for hibernation in winter which I understand means gradually reducing his intake and light exposure.

Thank you in advance x

 

[wellington]

He needs a much bigger home. This can be the walking problem. Not having enough room to roam can affect their muscles and cause problems inside and out.
Also the slippery house floors are no good and neither is roaming your house, very dangerous and can be deadly.
A proper sized, 4x8 foot minimum designated to him enclosure is needed.

 

[Yvonne G]

. . . might also be calcium/UVB causing the leg problem. They eat calcium, but also need UVB either from the sun or from a GOOD UVB light to make the calcium work inside his body.

Don't know about the white on his face. The pictures don't show up good on my device. Can you scrub it off with a soft bristle brush?

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Hello and welcome!

There are definitely things that need addressing with the set up, it’s far too small for an adult. Heating and lighting need amending, that night temp, whilst tolerable for a Russian, is a bit too cool for my liking, and I’m thinking your ambient temp isn’t where it needs to be during the day, especially now our uk weather is dropping. You need a CHE(ceramic heat emitter). Substrate also needs changing asap, top soil with what look like calcium bits isn’t appropriate.

You’ll find this thread I made useful to carefully read through, I explain all above points more in depth. I cover correct heating&lighting, levels, sizing, appropriately maintaining humidity, substrates, lots of visual examples for everything, and a good diet link!

Housing adult Russian and Hermans indoors

Hello there! In this thread I’m going to include some information an example of an appropriate indoor set up for an older Herman/russian. As much as it’s encouraged to have tortoises in a safe outdoor enclosure, I understand being from the uk myself, that some climates make it difficult to...

tortoiseforum.org

This one will also be really useful for you to go over and familiarise yourself with, it’ll help you avoid the wrong bulbs, substrates, housing etc, I encourage you to double check purchases here before buying!

Common keeping errors

Hello everyone! I’d been a long time lurker on this site long before joining just under a year ago now, over that time I’ve seen these husbandry issues come up time and time again, sometimes with dire consequences☹️ I thought this thread might serve as a good visual guide for these common...

tortoiseforum.org

Please come back with any further questions after giving them a read