Strange behavior?

[classiccarman2]

Hi, This is my first post. I have 2 Hermann's tortoises. Billy I have owned for 57 years and little Milly who is 6 years old. We moved house last year and Billy used to have the run of the whole back garden at the old house. Our new garden is considerably bigger and have not made it tortoise escape proof yet so the 2 tortoises have a penned off area which includes the sunny patio and some lawn and flower beds to hide in. We have recently pushed some of those solar lights around the edge of the patio but our old Hermann. Billy hates them. He pushes them over or tries to bite through the plastic spike base !!. The young Milly totally ignores them ! She dosent usually get up till later on in the day but Billy makes a beeline for these lights first thing in the morning. Very strange !! Can anybody explain this strange behavoir?

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Up close, is there a tiny reflection of a face there on the stem?

 

[Yvonne G]

Well, first of all, it's very hard for a tortoise to move house. They are territorial and don't do well when moved. So you can expect a stressed tortoise for a month or so while he gets used to his new territory.

About the lights, I don't know why, but he has decided that those lights are interlopers in his territory and it is his job to get rid of them. He's trying to chase them out of his territory (which is a good sign that he is starting to accept the new place as 'home').

 

[classiccarman2]

Hi both . Thanks for your replies . The stems of the lights are brushed aluminum so no reflection there. This is the second summer since moving house last year and he seemed to have settled in ok last year as the garden gets a lot more sunshine than the old garden. Like you mentioned, they are very terrotorial. He generally ignores little Milly being a loner for for 51 years of our ownership of him but she follows him all over the patch of garden they share. They have touched noses and smelt eachothers feet which I read somewhere is how tortortoises recognise eachother ? I know in the wild they are usually loners having quite large territories. Maybe they have good spacial memory and don't like anything new on their patch hence his anger at the lights. I had better remove them
Has anyone seen the video of a large Horsefield attacking a big fat ginger cat on a wood panelled floor inside someones lounge? It made me giggle. The cat just took all the butting and biting and totally ignored the determined tortoise. The Jack Russel dog just watched on in total amusement probably letting the tortoise do his job for him