So. Much. Pee!

[Elohi]

My Leo's are doing well and their chamber is stable. Rolly pool lie bugs are helping keep it clean but the urine smell is becoming obvious. I lift the lid and I smell a bit of urine. It's not strong but it's obvious to my sensitive nose. It's always really wet in the chamber in my efforts to keep the humidity up but I guess it's time to completely redo their chamber again with new substrate because I can't see the smell getting better otherwise. Apparently my Leo's are very hydrated. I visibly see them pee regularly, so I guess that's good but not so good for their chamber LOL.
Any tips for keeping the enclosure less odiferous?


Elohi(Earth)[TURTLE]

 

[T33's Torts]

Young lemon plants (out of the way from little mouthes) give off a nice, light scent, as well as basil and jasmine.

 

[bouaboua]

My Leo's are doing well and their chamber is stable. Rolly pool lie bugs are helping keep it clean but the urine smell is becoming obvious. I lift the lid and I smell a bit of urine. It's not strong but it's obvious to my sensitive nose. It's always really wet in the chamber in my efforts to keep the humidity up but I guess it's time to completely redo their chamber again with new substrate because I can't see the smell getting better otherwise. Apparently my Leo's are very hydrated. I visibly see them pee regularly, so I guess that's good but not so good for their chamber LOL.
Any tips for keeping the enclosure less odiferous?


Elohi🌎(Earth)[TURTLE]

This is also my "problem" too. My wife is complain about the foul smell from the new indoor enclosure. The weather in Northern California is getting better, she is able to take them out in the yard for sun bath, she did observe bowel movement and pee when they are out but I think they still do there "business" indoor.

This is a 3 foot by 6 foot enclosure, there is a lot of substrate need to be change out.

I need help too.

 

[Elohi]

My Leo's are doing well and their chamber is stable. Rolly pool lie bugs are helping keep it clean but the urine smell is becoming obvious. I lift the lid and I smell a bit of urine. It's not strong but it's obvious to my sensitive nose. It's always really wet in the chamber in my efforts to keep the humidity up but I guess it's time to completely redo their chamber again with new substrate because I can't see the smell getting better otherwise. Apparently my Leo's are very hydrated. I visibly see them pee regularly, so I guess that's good but not so good for their chamber LOL.
Any tips for keeping the enclosure less odiferous?


Elohi(Earth)[TURTLE]

This is also my "problem" too. My wife is complain about the foul smell from the new indoor enclosure. The weather in Northern California is getting better, she is able to take them out in the yard for sun bath, she did observe bowel movement and pee when they are out but I think they still do there "business" indoor.

This is a 3 foot by 6 foot enclosure, there is a lot of substrate need to be change out.

I need help too.

The rollie pollie bugs do help with poo and food scrap clean up but they don't do anything for the urine that's building up in the enclosure unfortunately. Shoooooweeee stinky.

Does anyone know if the substrate from the enclosure would be good for plants? It would be good if I could recycle it.


Elohi(Earth)[TURTLE]

 

[Kingsmen]

Are you bathing the tortoise enough? My tort Lincoln learned pretty quickly that he should only pee in his soaks and now lets us know by scratching at the walls and walking back and fourth that he has to go. He's over a year old now and has yet to relieve himself in his habitat. So try just soaking it more often until it gets the point of it.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Elohi,

Yes you can use the old substrate for plants. It will make nice fertilizer In fact, I frequently use their dirty bath water to make tortoise tea and use it on the plants. To prevent cross contamination I only water the out of reach stuff with the tea.

I currently have 2 chambers set up. The juvenile chamber still smells coco nutty from the coir. Even after many months. They spend all day outside and only sleep in there. The baby chamber does accumulate the urine and when I start to get whiffs of it, I rinse some of it out. The coco coir can be rinsed and re used if you'd like. Just the other day I took less than half of it out, rinsed it and then took the blow dryer to the chamber (the torts weren't in there) to dry it up a bit. Then I re set up the decor and ta-dah it's good to go.

Have you seen what Will did with his closed chambers? He installed a drain at the bottom edge of the tote. He will rinse out his substrate by flooding the chamber and opening the drain. I like it and would consider doing that if I had multiple chambers to maintain. But for now the spot cleansing works for me. Check it out and see what your thoughts are on it.

 

[MyTrek]

Heather, Do you have a link to Will's post? (Sorry to hijack)

 

[Levi the Leopard]

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread-77044.html