Spending A LOT of time in water dish suddenly...

Jenni

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So I switched up Peanut's enclosure a little bit yesterday morning. In doing so I replaced his plastic water dish with a terracotta dish, slightly larger than what he had before. Since then I've noticed he's MUCH more active, constantly roaming it seems. He will walk from one end of the enclosure to the other, almost in a pattern, over and over. On the one end he will get in to his water dish, go in a few circles for 2-3 minutes or just rest in it, then get out and go back to his food, maybe take a little rest, maybe explore a bit and then repeat the whole thing over again. This is definitely new behavior. He did sleep at night and when I turned the lights on this morning he was sprawled out comfortably. Woke up and began his new little routine, roaming for the past 2 hours now. He does stop to eat...What could this mean? He likes it? He's stressed? Why is he all of the sudden spending so much time in the water? I've changed it twice already this morning due to poop and excessive dirtiness lol
 

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JoesMum

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Your tort has a new territory and that requires checking, and double checking, to make sure its safe and to make sure there's nobody else that needs to be chased out. Your tort will settle whenits decided there are no surprises, but some catch on quicker than others, but it could take a while. Don't worry as long as weight is maintained.

As for the self-soaking... yippee! Your tort is doing it for himself and enjoying. Don't get to hyper about keeping the water clean; your tort doesn't care. Change the water daily. Surrounding the water dish with rocks, slate chips or similar can help prevent the substrate from being dragged into it
 

Markw84

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Jenni,

You have a lot of the thing right now for your tortoise - humidity and temps - and you are seeing the effects of a much happier, more active tortoise. However, you are also seeing the effects of an enclosure that is way too small. They like to roam and will often try incessantly to find a place they feel more secure. Once you get a larger enclosure set up and offer more natural hiding spots, you will see an even bigger difference!

While typing this, I decided to go out and see what my leopard was doing to show you...

IMG_5600.JPG
 

wellington

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My leopard always roamed a lot when I would change up his enclosure when he was little.
The enclosure you have is good for about six months to a year depending on the growth rate. Get another one of those tubs and connect the two together to expand his room, cutting a hole in each that matches up and thrn either connect the two with a tunnel or use something to get them attached to each other. When mine was little I used the tunnel.
 

Jenni

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Your tort has a new territory and that requires checking, and double checking, to make sure its safe and to make sure there's nobody else that needs to be chased out. Your tort will settle whenits decided there are no surprises, but some catch on quicker than others, but it could take a while. Don't worry as long as weight is maintained.

As for the self-soaking... yippee! Your tort is doing it for himself and enjoying. Don't get to hyper about keeping the water clean; your tort doesn't care. Change the water daily. Surrounding the water dish with rocks, slate chips or similar can help prevent the substrate from being dragged into it


Yeah the problem is he's slowly been losing weight since I got him a couple weeks ago... I am doing what I can and hoping for the best but I just don't know how it's all going to pan out... :(
 

Jenni

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Since we've been unable to go outside the past couple days so I decided to bring the outside in. Prepping for the crappy long Chicago winter ahead of us. He seems to like it. Have some grass growing in there, planted all kinds of things for him.... his hide box is now appropriately covered...

We are going to start the construction of the top of the enclosure this weekend, which is essentially going to be like a greenhouse lid. Once that's up then I can build up a little so he has some more space to check out. Can't wait!22195408_10154612884286525_8167199834702092970_n.jpg 22195408_10154612884286525_8167199834702092970_n.jpg22195437_10154612884276525_7131605437133614547_n.jpg 22221941_10154612884346525_5165338772108728567_n.jpg 22228452_10154612884361525_3004833357007281597_n.jpg 22308788_10154612884281525_2625419507420002094_n.jpg 22310159_10154612884271525_7792715602650766422_n.jpg
 

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