Good afternoon everyone! I just finished putting together and setting up my home for the marginated tortoise I plan to get next week! What does everyone think? In the dirt I've got some random seeds for garden herbs and possibly some carrot and onion seeds as well as wild plantain. Let me know if you've got any suggestions for a baby marginated. I've got a dual light fixture that I'm going to put a UV light and ceramic heater that I haven't hooked up yet.
Soon to be Marginated dad!
- Thread starter ChuckK
- Start date
@tglazie is the main man I go to for margie advice. Hopefully he will chime in here.
Congrats on the new baby! I don't have much experience with them, but they seem like a great species.
Congrats on the new baby! I don't have much experience with them, but they seem like a great species.
Congrats. I can't help either. If Tom's recommendation doesn't pop in maybe @Will can help.
Hi Chuck,
I'm the one to whom Tom is referring. I've been keeping marginated tortoises for over two decades now. I've raised a breeding colony from hatchlings, and they produce eggs for me every year. Every mistake you can make with marginated tortoises, I think I've made it. I lost a number of hatchlings in my earlier years to dehydration, over my stubborn insistence in keeping babies strictly outdoors. I've lost babies to predation and accidental drowning. And I've tried all manner of housing, diet, and rearing strategy. I'm not the most scientifically literate keeper on the forum, but I do have a considerable amount of experience when it comes to this species in particular, as they have been the focus of my young life outside work.
Now, the housing unit is a good start. I would imagine you've read extensively on this forum concerning housing, nutrition, environmental maintenance, and some basics concerning health and veterinary care, so I will proceed with these assumptions in mind. If you have any questions, of course, just let me know. I will say that you will probably want to isolate whatever seed you're planting within the enclosure. Your baby's voraciousness will depend upon it's individual personality, but if he/she is like most baby margies, he/she will make short work of any small seedlings struggling to grow. I've often grown dandelions, plantain, various clovers and dichondra in a shallow rectangular planter, then simply sank the planter into the substrate once the plants were large enough to sustain the abuse, at least for a while. Once your kiddo gets some size on him, and under proper conditions, the kid will grow quickly, you'll want to set up an outdoor grazing area. This speaks to another aspect of care further down the line. Florida is a wonderful place to raise tortoises outdoors from everything I've read of Floridians' posts on this forum. If you ultimately have access to an outdoor area, your tortoise, when it reaches a larger size, will definitely benefit from this.
I see you are using a bark substrate. When it comes to babies, my preference is to use coco coir. In my experience, coir holds moisture far better and is easily excavable, a matter of critical importance to baby marginated tortoises. Baby marginated tortoises spend a great deal of time buried in the substrate, and the benefits of humidity afforded by coir over bark chips can't be understated. This brings about a common problem, which is that babies can often obscure themselves in the substrate and be rather difficult to find. I generally find this is less of a problem when the youngster passes six months of age, but for that first half year, you'll be doing a lot of digging to find that guy before morning and evening baths. Speaking of baths, I generally provide two twenty minute baths in lukewarm water per day, once in the morning while I ready myself for work, and once in the evening when I return home from the shop. I've found this to be critical in establishing proper hydration, which I would argue is quite possibly the most critical aspect to keeping healthy baby tortoises.
Speaking of hydration, once you get an infrared dull emitter or heat panel and a flourescent tube light (get the tube type), make certain you are able to completely cover the enclosure at night, and I mean completely. Allowing the humidity to rise into the seventy percent range (or higher) is of great help in ensuring that the baby keeps properly hydrated during sleep and ensures that the baby's shell grows smoothly.
When your baby is small, it will spend a great deal of time hiding. When you first introduce it into the habitat, it will probably be very excited during the first day, dashing about in a panic. Then it will most likely find a place to hide and remain hidden most of the time. This is normal, and shouldn't be cause of alarm. Keep in mind that babies spend much of their time hiding. This also stresses the importance of bath time. In my experience, babies eat best after a morning bath. You can't just put food into an enclosure and expect them to show up and eat. Sure, this is how it works in the wild, but in the wild, most babies are crow and skunk food. Giving them a bath in the morning gets their innards moving, and once freshly hydrated and warmed by the lukewarm water, most babies are ready to eat.
There's so much more to tell, but I think that's a good introduction. Some basics of advice that most folks don't speak to, I guess, would be to always be planning. For instance, I have an outdoor enclosure in which I keep my new baby marginated tortoises during the mornings when weather permits (I don't keep them outdoors all day, given how hot and dry it gets outside; granted, sixty percent of the outdoor enclosure sits beneath the shade of a Pakistani mulberry, but even still, I don't want any of the babies stupidly sitting out in the open when the air starts to burn under the south texas sun, so, yeah, I bring them in by lunch time), and in the winter, before any eggs have even been deposited into the ground, I aerate the soil and replant the area. By early March, eggs are laid by my females, and by mid May (any day now), my first clutches begin hatching. By this time, all of my seedlings have some good growth on them and will make proper cover and a handsome feast for the babies to come. Always think of how to make life better for them, how to increase enclosure size when your tortoise is a twelve or fifteen inch monster following you anytime you enter his or her line of sight.
T.G.
I'm the one to whom Tom is referring. I've been keeping marginated tortoises for over two decades now. I've raised a breeding colony from hatchlings, and they produce eggs for me every year. Every mistake you can make with marginated tortoises, I think I've made it. I lost a number of hatchlings in my earlier years to dehydration, over my stubborn insistence in keeping babies strictly outdoors. I've lost babies to predation and accidental drowning. And I've tried all manner of housing, diet, and rearing strategy. I'm not the most scientifically literate keeper on the forum, but I do have a considerable amount of experience when it comes to this species in particular, as they have been the focus of my young life outside work.
Now, the housing unit is a good start. I would imagine you've read extensively on this forum concerning housing, nutrition, environmental maintenance, and some basics concerning health and veterinary care, so I will proceed with these assumptions in mind. If you have any questions, of course, just let me know. I will say that you will probably want to isolate whatever seed you're planting within the enclosure. Your baby's voraciousness will depend upon it's individual personality, but if he/she is like most baby margies, he/she will make short work of any small seedlings struggling to grow. I've often grown dandelions, plantain, various clovers and dichondra in a shallow rectangular planter, then simply sank the planter into the substrate once the plants were large enough to sustain the abuse, at least for a while. Once your kiddo gets some size on him, and under proper conditions, the kid will grow quickly, you'll want to set up an outdoor grazing area. This speaks to another aspect of care further down the line. Florida is a wonderful place to raise tortoises outdoors from everything I've read of Floridians' posts on this forum. If you ultimately have access to an outdoor area, your tortoise, when it reaches a larger size, will definitely benefit from this.
I see you are using a bark substrate. When it comes to babies, my preference is to use coco coir. In my experience, coir holds moisture far better and is easily excavable, a matter of critical importance to baby marginated tortoises. Baby marginated tortoises spend a great deal of time buried in the substrate, and the benefits of humidity afforded by coir over bark chips can't be understated. This brings about a common problem, which is that babies can often obscure themselves in the substrate and be rather difficult to find. I generally find this is less of a problem when the youngster passes six months of age, but for that first half year, you'll be doing a lot of digging to find that guy before morning and evening baths. Speaking of baths, I generally provide two twenty minute baths in lukewarm water per day, once in the morning while I ready myself for work, and once in the evening when I return home from the shop. I've found this to be critical in establishing proper hydration, which I would argue is quite possibly the most critical aspect to keeping healthy baby tortoises.
Speaking of hydration, once you get an infrared dull emitter or heat panel and a flourescent tube light (get the tube type), make certain you are able to completely cover the enclosure at night, and I mean completely. Allowing the humidity to rise into the seventy percent range (or higher) is of great help in ensuring that the baby keeps properly hydrated during sleep and ensures that the baby's shell grows smoothly.
When your baby is small, it will spend a great deal of time hiding. When you first introduce it into the habitat, it will probably be very excited during the first day, dashing about in a panic. Then it will most likely find a place to hide and remain hidden most of the time. This is normal, and shouldn't be cause of alarm. Keep in mind that babies spend much of their time hiding. This also stresses the importance of bath time. In my experience, babies eat best after a morning bath. You can't just put food into an enclosure and expect them to show up and eat. Sure, this is how it works in the wild, but in the wild, most babies are crow and skunk food. Giving them a bath in the morning gets their innards moving, and once freshly hydrated and warmed by the lukewarm water, most babies are ready to eat.
There's so much more to tell, but I think that's a good introduction. Some basics of advice that most folks don't speak to, I guess, would be to always be planning. For instance, I have an outdoor enclosure in which I keep my new baby marginated tortoises during the mornings when weather permits (I don't keep them outdoors all day, given how hot and dry it gets outside; granted, sixty percent of the outdoor enclosure sits beneath the shade of a Pakistani mulberry, but even still, I don't want any of the babies stupidly sitting out in the open when the air starts to burn under the south texas sun, so, yeah, I bring them in by lunch time), and in the winter, before any eggs have even been deposited into the ground, I aerate the soil and replant the area. By early March, eggs are laid by my females, and by mid May (any day now), my first clutches begin hatching. By this time, all of my seedlings have some good growth on them and will make proper cover and a handsome feast for the babies to come. Always think of how to make life better for them, how to increase enclosure size when your tortoise is a twelve or fifteen inch monster following you anytime you enter his or her line of sight.
T.G.
So much good info! Thank you T.G.
Thank you so much for your quick and thorough reply ! I was planning on going with Arizona Tortoise Compound to get little guy from. If you have any babies (I suppose they would be one year old's if your next clutches will be hatching this week) if I can handle the price!
Arizona Tortoise Compound would definitely be a good source for hatchlings. I would also consider Chris Leone of Garden State Tortoises/Hermanni Haven. Both of those guys know their stuff. I don't have any hatchlings available at the moment, unfortunately. All of last year's babies sold at the Lone Star expo and through a friend of mine at his Reptile Shop here in San Antonio, and my first clutch of the spring just hatched last night, and as a rule, I don't offer newly hatched kiddos. I'm generally not comfortable selling them until they're at least eight months old, ensuring that whoever gets them has the animal well started. I mean, there's that reason, plus the fact that I just like having newborn baby tortoises around, and holding a couple dozen kiddos over the winter is great, because all of my adults go into brumation, and I honestly find myself getting a little restless from mid-November to mid-February. I typically sell babies around early February, given that the kiddos start to get some size on them and really start eating a sizeable quantity of food. At that time they grow so large that I need to run multiple containers to bathe them, and I start to panic a little over the fact that my morning and evening routines start including an extra hour of tortoise time right as my adults emerge from brumation, which if you ever decide to brumate, you will find out how much of a task that is, resurrecting ten tortoises from deepest sleep.
T.G.
T.G.
HA! Welcome to my world! Anything less than 50 hatchlings at a time is a light duty day...
True, Tom, I was never so lucky as to wade into the propogation of sulcata and p pardalis. And Russians too, yes? And your stars must be on the verge of producing. Always wanted to get into those, but clearing six cedars and a fifth acre of brush, running power and water... Basically, one day it might happen. But my eye is on getting my hands on some US captive bred Bowsprits. But hey, whose eye isn't fixated so? Ultimately, I must consider myself on easy street for the fact that my girls lay six to ten eggs at a time, all generally in the spring when the weather is fare. Not a Chris Leone style egg machine in the bunch. All the girls start laying in early March, finish up by late May/early June. Ask me in fifteen to twenty when my rads start messing up the whole schedule.
T.G.
T.G.
He seems very happy with his living arrangement!
Hows he doing now? I like your habitat for him but I thought that the food and water dishes should be sunk down more into substrate? And does he really like to climb, just a bit concerned because he may tip over?
He's doing good! He does like to climb! I have the substrate somewhat piled around the potential fall areas, so he doesn't have problems with falling. His substrate is pretty deep so he can burrow (which he loves to do!) and he hasn't had any trouble getting up to the food and water dishes, so I've just left them sitting on top. They're real shallow.
I have noticed that ever since I got him he seems to.. hiccup? or something.. He kinda moves his front legs and his head back into his shell just a tiny bit. Not sure how to describe it other than a hiccup. He doesn't have any problems eating or going to the bathroom and gets around his enclosure plenty well.
I have noticed that ever since I got him he seems to.. hiccup? or something.. He kinda moves his front legs and his head back into his shell just a tiny bit. Not sure how to describe it other than a hiccup. He doesn't have any problems eating or going to the bathroom and gets around his enclosure plenty well.
surfergirl
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2015
- Messages
- 489
my boy did that as a youngster. he is now much older and no longer does that. might be some kind of reaction to a threat when they feel vulberable?
