Whats Your Daily Routine

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Yvonne G

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First think in the a.m. I chop up their food and place it in the feeding station. Then I get them all out and place them around the food. Then I hand pick up any debris from the habitat that I can see. Every time I walk by their habitat, I place them in front of the food again. I leave the same food there all day long.
 

webskipper

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At o'dark hundred (when some people are still texting in their REM sleep) I put a giant handful of chopped greens into the cage on the flagstone and add on a lovin spoonful of atomic Tortoise supplements (calcium, vitamins and D3). Mind you that the greens are chilly from swimming in refrigerated water all night so by the time the kids roll out of their bunkers, it's just right.

When I get home it's time to clean up. When I see them doing laps (usually ccw), they get a small handful of some other greens. Maybe just Grassland Tortoise pellets. Water bowl is regularly cleaned. The feeding frezy is a good time to observe them and poop scoop. When one eats then I find them all so they all have the same chance at gaining love handles. Just saying.

Soakings are done on the weekends so I can leave them outside in the sunshine. Sometimes I soak during the week in the evenings regardless of sunshine.
 

Tom

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For babies: Soak, food, sun, soak, more food. Lots of shell spraying in between. I soak the babies first thing in the morn. Feed them right after and then put them in the sunning enclosure for an hour or two once the temp is right. This is followed by another soak and then back to the indoor enclosure. In the evening one more soak followed by some more grub. After reading what Danny said about over night dehydration in a thread a while back, I've decided a soak before bed and immediately after waking up should prevent this. The soak after sun is because it is very hot and dry here. I get dehydrated quickly if I don't drink enough out here, so I'm extra careful with my little babies. I also soak their sunning enclosure before and several times during their excursion.

Are you starting to see why I call them "Aquatic Morph" sulcatas?

My adults live outside and do these things on their own, but for the last few months they get sprayed with the hose whenever they come near it too. They seem to like this, BTW.
 

DonaTello's-Mom

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I do like Tom does. Soak in warm water (tortie loves his bath)..then food, then outside for a few hours, more food out there.
Back inside his tort table, another soak, more food, clean up poop and leftover food......and of course I mist him down really
good with a spray bottle several times a day too!
 

moswen

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i get up at 7 and begin the routine of turning on lights for all my reptiles and fishes... in the summer the babies go outside asap so that they can get some sun before it gets too hot, then i throw in some greens and calcium in sporadic areas so they kind of have to "forage for their food." i clean out and fill up their water dish, and then i go on to my other animals. then kaylynn and i have breakfast outside at our table that i put next to the baby enclosure so that i can watch them and make sure everyone's eating and moving around alright.

moswen usually suns himself first, safina usually takes a small bath, but ayana almost ALWAYS goes for the food first...! shes quite the pig. then i pooper scooper after my dogs, water all my plants front yard and back, and i also water my babies shells (they're usually quite indignant about that... could be bc the water's probably pretty cold!) and the plants in their enclosure. usually by this time it's around 10, and sometime between 10 or 11 a.m. they start to find hiding places or dig in the dirt so i bring them back inside for a nap and i scan for... excrements...

sometimes i take them back out in the evening when my husband gets home and we play in the back yard, but usually it's too hot for them and they just find hiding places anyway. it's bath time and bed time and lights out! (the bath and bed routine at night is more for my daughter's benefit, she helps me do it and it eases her into her bed time routine easier!! but i used to give them baths in the morning before they went outside, so now i just water their backs in the morning instead.)

also about once a week i "fluff up" their cypress mulch as well, because they seem to enjoy digging in it when it's nice and fluffy, by the end of the week they haven't dug in it for a day or two, i guess it gets too compact for them...?
 
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