thoughts ??

[reticguy76]

I have my desert tortoise in a homemade enclosure with some grass as substrate and a hide (still working on a good water dish for him/her)

anyway, i have a hole cut in the top of the enclosure for uvb and heat bulbs. i keep the room that he/she is in at around 78 degrees and i soak him/her outside 3-4 days a week for sunshine and water consumption.

my question is, at 78 degrees ambient room temp, is a heat induced "basking spot" needed??

my heat lamp burned out today, so there is not extra heat going into the cage, but i have uvb still going in.


thanks so much

 

[Merlin M]

I would think the basking spot is needed, temp does,t seem quite high enough to not need one...

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Ryan:

Unless a tortoise can raise his inner body temperature up to 80F and above, he can't digest his food. Look at it this way...your body temp is 98.6F. So 78F would be pretty cold to a cold blooded creature.

 

[reticguy76]

well, i guess my point/question really is, the enlosure is full closed with the excpetion of the hole on top for the lighting. the ambient room temp is 78, the ambiet cage temp is 82-83 (left that part out of my initial post). he/she does only spend 3 days basically in the enclosure, the rest of the days he/she is outside soaking and in the sun (and shade).

even though im in veterinary medicine, im more of a small animal and snake knowledgable. just starting to really learn about tortoises lately

 

[wellington]

A basking spot is 95-100. It doesn't have to be a UVB light, or even a light at all, you can use a ceramic heat emitter, but I think you should still have a spot that gets to the 95-100 temps.

 

[reticguy76]

thats what i figured and had been doing, before my heat lamp burned out early today. im getting a new one, just wanted to get opinions on whether its needed. for my snakes (native snakes included, atrox, cerberus, etc) they all just stay at room temp.


thanks so much everybody. great informative and friendly forum