Are temps too low for Meps Living Outside in Anaheim, CA Area?

janevicki

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I have two MEPs and every year brought them in for the winter. They are approx 4+ years old Vic Morgan's.

They are bigger now and we built a plywood house with a keen tortoise mat in it. It has a separate thermostat gauge for the mat and a wireless temp gauge so I can check ambient temp inside from the house. The ambient temp reads 59F in their house at 3 pm and I am going to play it safe and bring them in the house for tonight.

My question is: how cold can they be so I can leave them outside without worrying about them? Outside temps are 54F The keen mat and area around is reads 79-81F with a infrared thermometer. The Torts themselves read 62 F and 66 F when I use the infrared thermometer on them. Do I need to keep them warmer or it it ok as they are?
 

wellington

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@Yvonne G might be able to help. I have no idea. My guess though would be those temps are too cold. Nothing a portable oil filled radiator can't fix or maybe a che. They do need to warm up to 95-100 to properly digest their food too.
Wait an see what Yvonne or others say. Mine is guessing on other species.
 

janevicki

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Thanks Wellington, I have them inside for now. I also emailed Vic. We are having lots of rain and its a little colder than usual. Tomorrow is going to be 58 hi and 49 lo so better safe than sorry. I will have to put more "heat" in the tort house.
Thanks for you for your help!
 

Yvonne G

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They can withstand a little cooler temperatures than most tortoises, but I think your heated house needs to be warmer. My tortoise partner @Will has the Meps at his house near San Diego, and I have the Mees here at my house. Both of us keep them outside year round. He has a 'litter' of babies in his garage and I have two less-than-a-year old MEPs in my Mee shed in a tort table. My shed has Stansfield pig blankets (I like them better than the Kane pads) mounted on the wall at ground level and a 250 watt red brooder lamp hanging from the ceiling that comes on during the night. The temperature inside the shed, during the coldest part of the night, never gets below 75F degrees.

It sounds like your heated house needs to be better insulated. The mats in my 10' x 15' shed keep the interior shed nice and toasty. Maybe you don't have your Kane pad turned up high enough???
 

Kapidolo Farms

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They seem to digest food while being at Ambient temps that don't exceed 60F, however when they sit in the direct sun their body temp raises above that 60F. Temps for digestion are not established for Mep, but in now way need to be at those advised in Wellington's post.

Neonates I am raising do not have a heat spot. They have ambient which ranges from 68F low at night to 85F and they are growing well.

The adults outside have a night house that is kept at 70F via a thermostat which control two Reptile Basics 120 watt RBI heat panels. The thermostat's probe is away from the panels about 20 inches. One panel is on each side away from the door, the probe is between them at the end far from the door.

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/live-naked-people.126107/page-3#post-1236880 for an image.

The tortoises (three total) each weight about 60 pounds and vary where in the night house they sit overnight. I don't know why but one will usually sleep right at the door and one may be pushed against a pad, while the third just sits somewhere in between, they change location from one day to the next.

As for temps and a willingness to eat look at this image

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/live-naked-people.126107/reply?quote=1238352 it's 42F and she left the night house to go eat. Later the sun will find some gaps in the trees and she will sit there for awhile, then go back in the night house.

I think outside in a non-shelter (unheated) area they are okay down into the 50'sF as long as there is a sunny day where they can raise their body temp in the sun the next day. When evening get into the 60'sF the three adult Mep's will stay outside the night house and push up into piles of leaf litter/pine straw/mulch in a fake palm forest. You can see part of the fake palm forest in the temp image linked in this response.

For what it's worth when I was at the Philly zoo we had a 'let the giant tortoises out protocol' regarding aldabras and galops. 70F on an overcast day and 60F on a sunny day it was okay to let them out into their outdoor enclosure. Direct sun makes a big difference.

Vic Morgan has narrated such a range of experience I myself have a hard time following it in terms of implementing husbandry protocols. In those narrations he seems to describe scenarios where they will dig into piles of decomposing vegetation (mulch pile) when nightime temp drop into the 40's. I don't recall a duration for this activity or what the next day temp might be or other parameters that might describe relief from such cold that they maybe didn't have or chose not to use.

The take-away is that they have a much wider ability to endure temps that seem not so tropical. Non-the-less as keepers we are not looking to their ability to endure, but rather our ability to offer optimal. I think the parameters you have described are good.

Yvonne's narration of having the heat panels on the side is a good one. it makes sense and allows the tortoises to be more near or away, not just sitting on top or off the heat source. This would be the only advise I would suggest you follow if you don't already do it.
 

janevicki

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Thanks for your help Yvonne and Will!.
I will get an other heating device such as the Stansfield pig blankets in their house and mount it on the side and get the temps up.
 
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