Will my baby be okay? Temp issue & clicking

[frogroll]

So last night the temps went down to 79-80 due to some electrical fluke. I fixed it today, it’s back at 85°-90° but I am wondering if my baby will be okay? They went directly under the heat lamp so I’m thinking they got cold ):

Also I took delivery of my baby a few days ago and noticed that they make a very soft clicking noise. Is this normal? I was told that this is a response to being hungry/stressed but wanted to confirm with everyone since I can not find any online information regarding this. I guess I am just worried that they will get an URI and I’m not sure how fast that can develop. I feel like that would be extremely difficult to treat in such a small tortoise (they hatched in September).

 

[Ink]

Can you post pictures of the enclosure? Cute tortoise

 

[frogroll]

Can you post pictures of the enclosure? Cute tortoise

Of course. This was the setup I was told to keep for a few months before transitioning to anything else, to help with acclimation

 

[Ink]

@Yvonne G ,@Tom hopefully an expert will be able to help you soon. What is that substrate? I would remove the substrate ASAP. I am not an expert

 

[Ink]

@ZEROPILOT

 

[TeamZissou]

No reason to start worrying until you start seeing nose bubbles, gasping for air or something else. 80 degrees is not too cold for Egyptians.

Is this tortoise really only 6 months old? How much does it weigh?

 

[Yvonne G]

Oh my. . . where do I start? 😉😉

Having the plastic tub inside the guinnea pig cage is a good idea because it will make it easy for you to wrap the cage in plastic (shower curtain, etc.) to enclose it. You just have to figure out how to have your heat and lights inside the plastic too.

Is that corn cob bedding? Regardless of what it is, get rid of it and try to find fir bark. Petco, chewy, amazon all sell Reptibark and that's fir bark.

Get rid of the fogger. Once you have the fir bark in there you will be providing humidity by keeping the bark moistened. Water droplets in the air the tortoise breathes isn't a good idea.

Adding a few potted plants makes the tortoise feel safer (not so wide open), and the plants also bring up the humidity.

 

[Yvonne G]

Oops! I totally missed that this is an Egyptian tortoise. Please disregard my post above. Your substrate is probably crushed oyster shell, which is the substrate of choice for that species.

I don't know anything about Egyptians, so my previous post is way wrong for your baby. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

The temperature falling that little bit for a night. (Or several nights) should not harm your tortoise.
Although I know very little about this species

 

[PA2019]

I have raised Egyptians. Nightly temp drops are important for this species. Overnight drops down to 70 degrees is completely harmless (and arguably beneficial) as long as the environment isn’t wet. The key to keeping Egyptians is providing 70-80% AIR humidity while keeping the soil on the drier side. This can be achieved through the substrate you have already, but can also be maintained via multiple types of soil.

Here is something I wrote about keeping them in another post.

Substrate:
This species lives in an extremely sandy, arid environment. Successful husbandry and breeding of this species requires that the substrate they live on does not stay wet or saturated with moisture all day. Oyster shell substrate has been used since at least the 1970's with John Coakley with great success, as it does not become saturated with moisture, allows for great traction especially with hatchlings, and if ingested is digestible and a natural way to obtain calcium. Take note though, it is advisable to feed your tortoise on a tray or some elevated object to minimize the amount of ingested substrate (that goes for any tortoise). European breeders often use a mix of decompensated granite, sand, oyster shell and even clay and have had great success raising and breeding the species in captivity.

Humidity:
In their native range (Egypt, Libya, and the Negev desert) there are seasonal fog/mist weather patterns that can raise humidity levels to the upper 70's in the early morning hours, and the species has been documented drinking the dew that forms on leaves and rocks. However, the high humidity does not stay throughout the day and dissipates as temperatures rise during the day. In captivity, many keepers use foggers/misters for a short while (30 minutes-2 hours depending the situation) to mimic this rise in humidity with a corresponding drying out as temperatures rise in the enclosure. Foggers allow for the air to be humidified while keeping the ground relatively free from over saturation. Another option for safe humidity is to make a humid hide by gluing a piece of sponge to the roof of a hide to increase ambient humidity within the hide without getting the ground overly wet.

While they are from a hot, arid environment, they do not need to have constantly higher temperatures. An ambient temperature that reaches 85-88 is more than enough during the day.