Soaking Issue?

[hkrewusik]

So I've had Doug for about a week and a half now and he's settled in great! He's very active and is a good little eater. So far everything has been great! Except baths... I soak him twice a day every day for around 20-30 minutes and some days he'll sit there super happy and will dunk his head under the water and seem like he really enjoys it but some days I'll put him in the container I bath him in and he will immediately book it to the container wall and try to climb out. I'm super careful about the water temp so I'm not dumping him into water that's too hot or too cold, it's just on the up side of warm. And it's not too deep, I make sure that it's only deep enough so his face will only get wet if he dunks it in there. I even put a corner of the container on top on a cloth so there's a slight difference in depth of the water. I don't know if this is normal behavior and I should just let him throw his bath time tantrums or if I'm doing something wrong. Any and all opinions would be helpful!

This is Doug on a good bath day, just casually watching some tv while he soaks...

 

[wellington]

I would cut it back too just on a day. Make sure he has water available in his enclosure 24/7 and that he can get in and out easily of it. Some days they won't mind it, other days they may not want it. Mine, leopard and Russian do the same thing, except they are older, so are soaked less often.

 

[TobytheTortoise]

Maybe you need to just bathe him once a day every other day

 

[hkrewusik]

I might be wrong but in the research that I did I found that babies were especially prone to dehydration so soaking twice a day was a good choice.

 

[Yvonne G]

Yes, baby tortoises do dehydrate easily because of the hot lights we have on them, however, with a waterer in the habitat, and a good soak every day for about 15 or 20 minutes, that's all he needs to stay hydrated.

 

[wellington]

Ditto, one a day is fine. I would not do less then that though.