New tortoise - a few questions!
Posted: 17 May 2023, 17:32
We got our Horsfield tortoise Mishka (who we assume is a boy) a few weeks ago from an animal rescue centre. Nothing was really known of his background or age, he weighs 550g. He is living in a tortoise table inside with soil, and we are building him an enclosure for outside. He has a combined UV/Heat lamp - with the temperature at shell height at around 30c. He is being fed a varied diet of tortoise safe plants and weeds from our garden.
He gets a supervised wander round the garden every few days and bath once a week. He has some signs of damage to the top and underside of his shell and there is some 'frilling' of his shell too.
We have taken him to the vets and she seemed pretty happy with how healthy he seemed, considering the damage to his shell and lasck of history. She advises to hibernate, but not the first winter, as we will still be getting to know him.
I do have a few questions though:
- how often should we give nutrobal? Should we be giving calcium too? He hasn't shown any obvious interest in his cuttlefish bone
- he never goes into the bed area of his table - he just stays half buried in the soil, under where the lamp had been switched on. Should we move him to his bed area? The couple of times we put him in his bed area, he didn't come out until around 11am the next morning!
- He does seem to spend a lot of his day sleeping - is this normal!? He does eat nearly everything we give him each day, but he never seems to be anywhere other than under his lamp
- We are giving him enough leaves/flowers to make a blanket to cover his shell every day - is this too much?
- The soil in his tortoise table dries out so quickly, even with a spray every day, sometimes twice a day - is this ok?
Thank you so much in advance for the advice!
ps - tried to add a photo, but it's saying they are all too big!
He gets a supervised wander round the garden every few days and bath once a week. He has some signs of damage to the top and underside of his shell and there is some 'frilling' of his shell too.
We have taken him to the vets and she seemed pretty happy with how healthy he seemed, considering the damage to his shell and lasck of history. She advises to hibernate, but not the first winter, as we will still be getting to know him.
I do have a few questions though:
- how often should we give nutrobal? Should we be giving calcium too? He hasn't shown any obvious interest in his cuttlefish bone
- he never goes into the bed area of his table - he just stays half buried in the soil, under where the lamp had been switched on. Should we move him to his bed area? The couple of times we put him in his bed area, he didn't come out until around 11am the next morning!
- He does seem to spend a lot of his day sleeping - is this normal!? He does eat nearly everything we give him each day, but he never seems to be anywhere other than under his lamp
- We are giving him enough leaves/flowers to make a blanket to cover his shell every day - is this too much?
- The soil in his tortoise table dries out so quickly, even with a spray every day, sometimes twice a day - is this ok?
Thank you so much in advance for the advice!
ps - tried to add a photo, but it's saying they are all too big!