trouble finding food and drinking.

[DIRTY DAN]

hey everyone, i got my first greek tort 3 days ago and i love the little guy. i have 2 questions, the first is when he is ready to eat he cant seem to find the food with his mouth, hes allways biteing above it, below, or beside it, he somtimes hits the right spot but it doesnt seem normal, the food is in a very shallow dish.

the second question is when i soak him i have not seen him take in any water yet, im used to a tort allmost drinking instantly, and he stays pritty calm in the water unlike all my other baby tort have been in the past.

he is about an inch and a half long, he seems healthy otherwise,
im not sure if theres somthing wrong or im just worrying
any tips would be great. thanks

 

[Tom]

Hello and welcome.

Are you using any of those coil-type florescent bulbs? How about those infrared heat bulbs? Sometimes colored lights make things look a little funny and the coil type bulbs have been damaging to tort eyes in the past.

 

[DIRTY DAN]

i have a 18" uva, uvb strip light, i have a 75 wat infared bulb that stays on day and night over a basking spot and i have a 50 wattt ceramic bulb in th middle of the tank over his water dish. the bedding is alfala pellts. his food dish in on the other side of the 20 gallon rubermaid tank from the infared light.

 

[Mao Senpai]

I would... do a test to see if he might be blind with each eye. In terms of drinking water, I rarely ever see my greeks drink water so... I wouldn't be too surprised about that. I think out of the entire year I've had them, they drank once. I soak them and they have a water dish as well.

 

[Tom]

Try switching the infrared to a regular house hold incandescent bulb during the day and see if things improve.

 

[CtTortoiseMom]

Try hand feeding to see what happens if you put the food directly in it's line of sight.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Dirty Dan:

May we call you "Dan?" And May we know where you are?

Sometimes babies have trouble with their binocular vision when they are very, very young. It seems to take some of them a bit of time to get the two eyes coordinated so they are seeing correctly. Also, what Tom said about the lights is true also. We've had a spate of questions about tortoises eating their substrate and after some investigation, found out that the keepers were using a red light over the habitat. Tortoises' vision isn't like ours, and the red light makes what they see look different than it looks to us.

After you ditch the red light during the day, try piling up the food up against the wall of the habitat so that when he bites at it, it doesn't move away from him.

Welcome to the forum!! I'd love to see some pictures of your new baby and his habitat.

 

[greeks]

I would add to maybe try a different dish? The piling idea sounds good. When I got my very first babies I just had commercial dishes and they had a hard time getting at the food with their front claws and beaks and the food would mat don flat a lot of times and stick. I tried slate tiles for a while which were better. Now I have unglazed potting trays which work the best. You can heap the food against the little lip for the minis.

Also, my torts almost never drink in their bath. Not a one, at any age. I occasionally catch them sipping from their water dishes with their noses, though.

 

[DIRTY DAN]

hey everyone, thanks for the help

yes you can call me dan lol

so i got some store bought tortoise food that is a very bright colour

i changed the infared buld to a basking bulb

i checked his vision and he seems very alert on both sides

i changed the dish to a flat serface

wel see if theres any change in the next few days.

anyone have any ideas how how to up the humidity in his hide, his substrate is alfalfa pellets and he has a half log hide, everymorning and ever night im spray the inside and substrate with a squirt bottle but its still only around 50 on my hydrometer.

 

[greeks]

If you want to boost humidity you'll probably need to both change your substrate and build an actual humid hide. I haven't read any good opinions on alfalfa pellets. I think they pose an impaction hazard, but someone else may be able to offer a more certain opinion. Coconut coir, cypress mulch, and organic topsoil are all good moisture holding substrates for Greeks and aspen shavings and play sand are good drying components. It depends a bit on the age of your tort and its subspecies, as well as your and the tort's preferences. Sphagnum moss is a good material to use for hides because it will hold moisture longer.

For a good humid hide, you want either a partially buried "cave" or an at-the-surface house that will be both extra humid and very warm. Wet and cold do not mix! My humid hides are wooden square bird boxes that have repticarpet and sphagnum moss covering the inside floor and a sponge attached to the roof inside. The torts go in through a doorway and bury themselves in there to hide in the humidity.