The Tortoise Table

Breed - Horsfield
Age - 11 months
House Type - Indoor table
Diet - Mix of home-grown weeds with dragon fuel and calcium supplement
Lamp - Arcadia Mini D3 UV Basking Lamp, 80w (Approx. 10 inches above substrate)
Temperature - Average 32℃
Substrate - Coarse Coco Coir

He/she has been with us since December 2019 and was hatched in July 2019. From December to March he/she was really active; would not stop walking around his house and interacting with us. In around March 2020, he gradually became quite quiet (no longer walking up to us, putting his arms and head into his shell if we went near), was not walking around as much and spent a lot of the afternoon sleeping.

Since around the 10th March I’ve noticed he’s becoming more and more lethargic. He would wake up at 7am (when the light comes on) as usual, then after a couple of hours he would burrow down and go to sleep and do so for most, if not all, of the day. He’s gradually got worse to the point that now he doesn’t wake up when his light comes on and instead remains in the covered section of his house under the substrate all day. He might wonder around for 30 minutes or so but then head back to sleep for the whole day and night.

For the past few days, I’ve had to wake him up to give him a bath and feed him, and whenever I wake him he always feels really cold, so I place him under the light and let him warm up (before giving him a bath and feeding him). Sometimes, I lift the lid off his covered area and he is awake but is not moving, despite being cold. I should also add that since the ambient temperature has increased, I have slightly increase the height of his light to ensure the basking area temperature remains in the optimum range.

Is anyone able to tell me if this is normal behaviour for a young tortoise or if there is something else going on? It is the gradual contrast in behaviour that has concerned me.

Also, any advice on trimming tortoise nails please, as they’re getting too long?

Thank you in advance!

Hi T123 (sorry, I don't know your name), and welcome to The Tortoise Table.

First of all thanks so much for the detailed description and photos of your set-up -- it helps a lot! You've got a lovely little Horsfield there, and a nice set-up, so I'm hoping that with a few tweaks we can get the environment just right so that his energy returns. Young tortoises do sleep a lot, but yours shouldn't be lethargic, and you are right to question the change in his behaviour.

The one thing I can see that might need adjusting is your method of taking the temperature. Temperature and light levels are super important in influencing a tortoise's behaviour. I can see a round thermometer mounted on a wall not too far away from the light, but this will be giving a very inadequate (and low) reading. What you want to know is the temperature directly under that lamp, at the height of your tortoise's shell. So you will either need to hold the thermometer in the right place for a couple of minutes, get a temperature gun, or the best thing is to get at thermometer that will give you a reasonably accurate reading at all times. The best thing for this is a digital fridge/freezer thermometer with a probe on the end of a long wire. The display unit sits outside the table and you hang the probe down into the table so that it is as close as possible to the circle of light given off by your lamp. Something like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Freeze ... B071WKGTJL (but you can get them from lots of places, and it's good to get one with a Max/Min function so that you can see how hot or cool it was since you last reset the function). Basically you want it to be about 30C directly under the lamp, and about 20C at the cooler end (and no heat needed at night).

I think you've done a nice job with the table, and I like that little railing that goes partly across, because it means he has to walk round it an that provides more interest, but he doesn't need such a large sleeping area (they actually prefer a rather cramped area). So I wonder if leaving the top off his sleeping area and putting a little flower pot on its side, or one of those bendy long things in there would open up that space a bit for him -- and it means that he would see the light more easily in the mornings.

Is he having regular baths to ensure that he is well hydrated? I know he has a water bowl in there, but they often don't drink from their bowls so regular soaks in a container they can't see out of, in warm water up to their chin helps. Coconut coir is OK, but it can get a bit dusty -- do you spray it lightly fairly often?

When he is awake, is he eating well, and what sort of diet does he have? I'm not familiar with Dragon Fuel, but is it this: https://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/earthp ... gIhw_D_BwE If so then it's not going to hurt him, but it has a lot of alfalfa and other ingredients in it that indicate it's too high in protein for tortoises, and he should be having a high fibre/low protein diet, so I think it's not very appropriate for him (but that won't be the cause of his lethargy).

So sorry for so many questions, but although it's not uncommon to have a tortoise become lethargic, there are lots of possible causes of this, and I'm just trying to eliminate some. A possible worm infestation is another possibility, but I think it's best to eliminate other things first.

Finally, does he have an outdoor area that he can go in when it's warm enough? Tortoises really do love the outdoors and than can provide a welcome variety and a stimulating addition to his indoor environment.

Nina

Hi Nina,

Firstly, thanks very much for your reply and advice.

With regards to tracking temperature, there is a black wire in the photo which is actually a digital thermometer into his sleeping area (I realise I didn't specify this and this isn't clear from the picture so I apologise). I use this probe to measure the temperature directly under the light, which is approximately 30℃ (please see attached picture). His table/house is on our lounge. The outside-facing wall of the lounge is made of bifolding glass doors which the sun hits from about mid-afternoon onwards, so the room temperature does increase. This temperature change is something I'm very wary of. The minimum temperature in the room is 20℃.

I have now opened up the covered area and placed the bendy bridge inside (please see attached photo). He used to sleep behind the grass feature by his light in the corner, but I wonder whether it's too hot for him there now?

I give him baths daily in an opaque tub. His urine is completely clear which I believe is a sign of a well-hydrated tortoise. One thing I have noticed is that he doesn't appear to be passing fecal matter very often; however, I have reduced his food amount as he was putting on too much weight.

With regards to the coir, I spray it daily while he is in the bath. I tried hemp bedding but he didn't take to that. Is there another that you can recommend please?

As for the diet, I give him lamb's lettuce, dandelion and/or weeds which I planted from Lucky Reptile Herb Garden Seed Mix (Lucky Reptile Herb Garden Seed Mix https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009SB11GE/ ... 7EbM060SJV). Yes that is the Dragon Fuel which I sprinkle over his food. It was recommenced by the breeder but I will stop feeding it now - thank you for your advice.

He doesn't have an outdoor area. The main reasons is that I'm concerned about what he's eating in the garden as well as possible predators. When it's sunny and warm I do take him outside and watch over him at all times, however, the past few times he started to bite his own upper arms! I believe it was because he was brushing past long grass and perhaps the scent remained on his arms and he thought it was food! That was a real worry but it hasn't happened since.

Once again, thank you so much for your help. As a new tortoise owner it is really reassuring to have the help from experts. I try my best to look after him and I'm hoping that all I do only benefits him rather than being detrimental to his health and growth.

Best wishes,

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Oh dear, it isn't easy finding a reason why your tortoise is a bit lethargic because you are doing everything right! Usually there is something that stands out a mile that should be corrected, but I can't find that here, as your husbandry sounds really good. There are a couple of tiny tweaks that I'll suggest later, but nothing major that would bring about a dramatic change,

That's great that you've got temperature readings accurate, so no problem there. Your lamp is fixed to the arm above the table and therefore can't be moved up and down. So many tables are like this. Is the arm adjustable where it attaches to the side of the table? If not then would it be possible to undo the fitting where it is attached to the arm and hang the lamp from a chain that could be raised and lowered as necessary? I'll attach a photo of one of my lamps -- it just hangs from the arm above by a chain and I use an 'S' hook to raise and lower it as necessary. It probably doesn't matter too much if it gets a bit too hot under the lamp because he can always move to another area of the table to cool down if he wants to. The one thing I would be wary of is looking into that lamp yourself. It has a silver coating on most of the bulb and that will protect your eyes (looking directly into a UVB lamp can damage your eyes), but if your head is below the lamp at any time, or if you have small children, then you might look into it, so I might be good to get a shade/dome for it.

His urine. Clear is good, but it is completely natural for tortoises to expel white stuff called urates, so don't be alarmed if he does. If the white stuff is very liquid, like egg whites or even very soft like toothpaste, then he is well hydrated, but if it is sandy or gritty then it means he is dehydrated.

Bedding. I used to use hemp bedding many years ago -- it was all the fashion then -- but then it was discovered that sharp points on the pieces of hemp caused the occasional eye injury and also damage to intestines when swallowed, so everyone stopped. Coir is lightweight and OK, but not perfect. In the wild, tortoises live on a very sandy soil, and that is what they like best. So the recommended substrate now is a mixture of sterilised topsoil and children's play sand -- bags of which can be bought at Homebase, garden centres and places like that. Most people mix it 50/50, although I think my tortoises prefer a bit more soil to sand and I mix mine roughly 60/40. This has several advantages:
1. It's a more natural substrate for them
2. It's cheap
3. Wee and poo are easily removed (the subtrate just makes a clump when they wee on it and you can remove it with a spoon).
4. Horsfields are a burrowing species, and this is a much better substrate for burrowing
5. There is no fire hazard as there is with hemp -- or even coir -- if a lamp should burst and hot pieces of glass land on it.
Mix it to a depth where he can bury himself competely if he wants to and then give it a light spray every day (or what I do is to pour some water on it every three or four days and mix it up really well. The end result should be just the teeny tiniest bit damp -- not at all wet -- so that a handful of soil just about clumps together if you close your fist.
It looks to me from your photo like you've got another type of substrate there, near the feeding bowl, and it looks like Tortoise Life. If it is that, then that is fine to use, but it's expensive and topsoil and playsand are just as good. If it is Tortoise Life though, let me know, and I'll give you a neat little tip on unusual things you can do with it! Actually i've just noticed that it looks like you have a second level in that table, which is great -- tortoises like nothing better than climbing up and down and it's good exercise for them.

The diet. It's sounding good, and I would try to make it as wide and varied as possible. There are loads of things in the garden that you can feed him (weeds and flowers), and the bigger the variety the better it is for him. You can use the filter tool on our website to create list of edible plants, or you can just ask us or type the name of any plant into the search box on every page of the website to look it up. One nice thing to do is to grow your seeds in a succession of small trays. Sow into these little trays every two or three weeks. That way when one tray has plants big enough to feed him you can put that in his table and he can eat away, and when he has demolished that the next tray is ready.

The Dragon Fuel isn't going to kill him, and you could use it up over a long period of time by just putting the tiniest pinch of it on his food (so a whole lot less than you've been using) and I think it should be OK. You are absolutely right to monitor his growth. Horsfields are notoriously greedy (I can explain why, but this post is getting too long already!), and you do have to watch them closely so that they don't grow too quickly and get deformed shells. Actually, would you like a complimentary copy of our Tortoise Observation Records booklet? Send me your address ( nina@thetortoisetable.org.uk ) and I'll pop one in the post to you). It's a good way to keep records of his growth -- and you're aiming at an average growth of 1g - 3g per month.


If you can possibly give him a secure outdoor enclosure that will benefit him too. You can easily build something using log roll or bricks as a border and put some netting over the top for predators. It would just be for daytime use, and would need to be on bare ground rather than grass, but the natural sun will do him a world of good. Here's some info on building an outdoor enclosure if you want to think about it:
https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/tor ... u4FB-d7m9s

i'll stop now as I must have bored you silly with this long email. Let's see how he gets on now that his sleeping area is more open. If he doesn't pick up within a week or so then you might think getting a sample of poo tested for parasites. Do you have a good reptile vet (ordinary vets aren't great with tortoises because they lack training in them. Here's our vet list: https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/tor ... u4IMOd7m9s . Or you can easily send a sample off to be tested and we know a place that gives discounts to people who are friends of The Tortoise Table. Worms are very common and can be easily treated (and in fact you only need to treat him if he has a heavy load), but they can cause lethargy and loss of appetite.

Finally, the most important question -- what 's his name?

Nina

Hi Nina,

Could it be that it's too hot both under the light and in the areas of his table during the afternoon as the ambient temperature warms up, so he is sleeping too much?

The lamp arm is fixed by two screws which, when I have changed the lamp, I've had to unscrew and readjust. It would be much easier to have an adjustable arm so I can change the height depending on the room temperature. If you could please attach a photo of your setup I'd really appreciate it! I may move him tomorrow to another room where it is cooler in the afternoon, but I don't want to put him in a room by himself as I think he likes the company! Thank you for the advice regarding the lamp and the harmful UV rays, I'll look at getting a shade for it.

Thank you for the advice regarding the substrate. I use Coir for most of his house. There is Pro-Rep Tortoise Life Substrate Sand with calcium supplements at the top of his ramp under his feeding area - any tips would be greatly appreciated. I will look at changing to sterilised soil mixed with the sand.

I personally like the idea of growing my own food for him as I am sure it is the correct diet. A few of the flowers I've checked in the garden are not suitable, but I have not identified them all as I'm not sure of their name, but I will have another go using the website - Thank you!

Many thanks for the offer of a Observation record book, I'll email you now - thank you!

Thank you for the vet list. Unfortunately I don't live immediately near any of the vets in the list so I'd be concerned about transporting him for an hour or so without his basking light, but im not sure if this is a justified concern! If you could please let me know of a place that tests their fecal matter then I'd really appreciate it!

His name is Tortuga! I used to live in Mallorca when I was younger and the name is inspired from a Turtle that we had in our garden, but I was too young to look after it!

Once again, thank you very much for your help.

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

The readings you are getting underthe light seem fine to me, and if it's too hot then he can always move away to a cooler area. I can't quite see your thermometer well enough, but is that button on it an 'In/Out' temp. button or is it a 'Max/Min' button. The Max/Min ones are good because they tell you the hottest and coldest temperatures reached since you last re-set the function, but basically I wouldn't worry too much about the temperature because it seems OK.

I'm so sorry -- I meant to attach a photo of my lamp on the chain in the last post and forgot to do it. So I've attached two here. Basically the light hangs from a chain that is wound around the bar at the top, with an 'S' hook on the end of the chain and then that hooks into the chain at various places so that you can raise or lower the lamp.

The Tortoise Life substrate is fine, but expensive, so the topsoil and playsand will be cheaper. The little tip is just something silly that a friend showed me. There is a high component of clay soil in the Tortoise Life mixture, so if you put some in a bowl and add water so that it becomes like a wet clay, you can mould it into shapes and then it hardens. I've used it to cover those bendy log things, make hills by covering rocks and wood, etc. The tortoise does eventually wear it down and it starts to break up after a while, but then you can just wet it again. It's just something silly if you feel like being creative.

Re plants in your garden -- if you can't find them on the website then just send us some photos and we'll do our best to ID it for you. The best photos are ones of the plant growing in situ, plus any flowers, seed heads, close-ups of leaves etc. You'd be amazed at what you have in your garden that would be good for him (and if you have weeds that's even better -- sowthistle, plantain, dandelions, etc. etc.).

I haven't received your message with the address yet -- just email it to nina@thetortoisetable.org.uk And when I know where you live I might be able to find a good reptile vet closer to you. The place that tests for parasites is called Reptiland and here is their website: https://www.reptiland.co.uk/our-services If you put TTT in at checkout I think you get a 15% discount (although I'm not sure the offer is still on). The most common worms are oxyurid worms (pinworms) and they are easily treated, but the latest thinking amongst vet is that you don't need to treat a light load of worms (and in fact a light load has some benefits for the tortoise) -- just a heavy load needs treating.

Tortuga is a great, classic name! My grandchildren used to live in Kenya, and they had a resident Leopard tortoise in their garden (it would come and go as it pleased), and it was called Tortuga! Have also attached a photo of my grandson about ten years ago with Tortuga.

Nina
[attachment=0]IMG_8048 [Desktop Resolution].JPG[/attachment][attachment=1]m_DSC02336.jpg[/attachment][attachment=2]m_DSC02335.jpg[/attachment]

Hi Nina,

Many thanks for the photo of your setup - I'll have a play around and see what I can do.

Once again this morning I had to wake him up and place him under the light. He slept under his light behind the rock two nights ago and he still didn't get up when the light came on and instead remained burrowed

Thanks for the sending the info over of the worms - I'll get onto that.

Wow! Tortuga is a lot bigger than my Tortuga, but a great coincidence for what is a very unique name! That is a great story!

Thanks again,

Thomas