shinesun
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2017
- Messages
- 4
Hello I am a fairly new member of this forum.
This is the story of the healing of a baby redfoot tortoise I thought I'd share.
When I say baby I mean smaller than the palm of my hand, my hand being a bit below average size.
Yet, she managed to recover from what I believe was pneumonia( or a cold). My secret is that I pleaded with God to help me and show me how to take care of a baby redfoot because I am an unexperienced"jabuti" owner, the ones I knew were not mine but were from relatives and all were adults, I never knew how to care for A BABY ONE. By the way "jabuti" is how redfoot/yellowfooted/cherryhead tortoise are called here. So, I figured out, since God created all creatures He knows how they need to be taken care of, right? He heed my pleads before too late.
It is my belief my baby redfoot tortoise's friend immunity was decreased due to stress ,maybe because I had to bring her home by bus, but mainly because of the weather It was sunny day until later on that same day, when it became rainy and cold. The weather is like this here ,pretty random(even in winter a sunny day can become a cold rainy one and vice versa) .Anyways, after a few hours home she wouldn't eat, and would remain sleeping or very lethargic when she was pretty active at first.Later I found out she was propably trying to hibernate plus presenting symptoms pneumonia. Then she got only worse and worse, until barely moving and sleeping all day remaining inside her shell to a point I'd be scared of waking her up only to find out she was gone. So I prayed God would show me how to take care of her, because eventhough searching and searching , absorbing information pertinent to her species I just couldn't let her hibernate. It is funny because at times she would be like"let me sleeeep e.e" whenever I would check on her.After praying , thanks to The Creator I was able to fix it all in the wisest way I could.
Here were the main issues:
¤ she was showing difficulty to breath-because eventhough winter here is not TOO cold , the air still gets dry, making it difficult for a tortoise to breath
¤she was showing difficulty to eat or move at all-actually trying to spend as little energy as possible she would barely nibble food
.
¤How to fix the issues
•the respiratory problem :
The respiratory problem is fixed by boiling water and pouring it in a recipient, preferably something long like a bottle,then placing that very recipient near the tortoise's hiding place or outside her habitat, near the tortoise providing both warmth and humidity from the steam that would come up, solving more then one issue at once
•To the food issue
The heat from the boiled water also solved the food problem as the heat would warm her up allowing her to feed a little bit more properly. Eventhough I learned when tortoises hibernate instead of overeating they eat less or even fast . However I was too uneasy and I thought I'd loose her if I didn't get her to eat something. So what I did at first is:
¤ give her a room temperature water soak or even warm the water a little ,then let her soak just until she did her necessities and take her out. Then I'd process her food(leafy plants like cale, coriander and rocket , and a teaspoon of tuna) she likes in the liquifier then pour boiling water on it and let it became lukewarm, so that the food will provide some heat. Then put the tortoise near the food and the tortoise should eat it , also the tortoise will want to enter in the food bowl to soak in the food and absorb it from skin I think, then it will go back to nearby the heat source.
Then as the tortoise heals you won't have to liquify the food anymore but just chop the food, the fruit and leafy plants they like and it will be easier , because the tortoise will be trying to save body energy as much as possible.
What went wrong:
• it's been a few days since I brought her and it is WINTER here
•I let her soak in room tempeture water ,by her second day here, only to later finding out we are not supposed to do it unless in warm weather
•Keeping her in an habitat that was not tall enough
•Not providing adequate substrate which now is organic soil (without fertilizers or chemicals, the one soil for plants)
•The habbit of letting the fan turned on in the same room the tortoise is . By the first few days when I turned it off it had already affected her negatively
Thank God she is alright now I hope she remains healthy.
This is the story of the healing of a baby redfoot tortoise I thought I'd share.
When I say baby I mean smaller than the palm of my hand, my hand being a bit below average size.
Yet, she managed to recover from what I believe was pneumonia( or a cold). My secret is that I pleaded with God to help me and show me how to take care of a baby redfoot because I am an unexperienced"jabuti" owner, the ones I knew were not mine but were from relatives and all were adults, I never knew how to care for A BABY ONE. By the way "jabuti" is how redfoot/yellowfooted/cherryhead tortoise are called here. So, I figured out, since God created all creatures He knows how they need to be taken care of, right? He heed my pleads before too late.
It is my belief my baby redfoot tortoise's friend immunity was decreased due to stress ,maybe because I had to bring her home by bus, but mainly because of the weather It was sunny day until later on that same day, when it became rainy and cold. The weather is like this here ,pretty random(even in winter a sunny day can become a cold rainy one and vice versa) .Anyways, after a few hours home she wouldn't eat, and would remain sleeping or very lethargic when she was pretty active at first.Later I found out she was propably trying to hibernate plus presenting symptoms pneumonia. Then she got only worse and worse, until barely moving and sleeping all day remaining inside her shell to a point I'd be scared of waking her up only to find out she was gone. So I prayed God would show me how to take care of her, because eventhough searching and searching , absorbing information pertinent to her species I just couldn't let her hibernate. It is funny because at times she would be like"let me sleeeep e.e" whenever I would check on her.After praying , thanks to The Creator I was able to fix it all in the wisest way I could.
Here were the main issues:
¤ she was showing difficulty to breath-because eventhough winter here is not TOO cold , the air still gets dry, making it difficult for a tortoise to breath
¤she was showing difficulty to eat or move at all-actually trying to spend as little energy as possible she would barely nibble food
.
¤How to fix the issues
•the respiratory problem :
The respiratory problem is fixed by boiling water and pouring it in a recipient, preferably something long like a bottle,then placing that very recipient near the tortoise's hiding place or outside her habitat, near the tortoise providing both warmth and humidity from the steam that would come up, solving more then one issue at once
•To the food issue
The heat from the boiled water also solved the food problem as the heat would warm her up allowing her to feed a little bit more properly. Eventhough I learned when tortoises hibernate instead of overeating they eat less or even fast . However I was too uneasy and I thought I'd loose her if I didn't get her to eat something. So what I did at first is:
¤ give her a room temperature water soak or even warm the water a little ,then let her soak just until she did her necessities and take her out. Then I'd process her food(leafy plants like cale, coriander and rocket , and a teaspoon of tuna) she likes in the liquifier then pour boiling water on it and let it became lukewarm, so that the food will provide some heat. Then put the tortoise near the food and the tortoise should eat it , also the tortoise will want to enter in the food bowl to soak in the food and absorb it from skin I think, then it will go back to nearby the heat source.
Then as the tortoise heals you won't have to liquify the food anymore but just chop the food, the fruit and leafy plants they like and it will be easier , because the tortoise will be trying to save body energy as much as possible.
What went wrong:
• it's been a few days since I brought her and it is WINTER here
•I let her soak in room tempeture water ,by her second day here, only to later finding out we are not supposed to do it unless in warm weather
•Keeping her in an habitat that was not tall enough
•Not providing adequate substrate which now is organic soil (without fertilizers or chemicals, the one soil for plants)
•The habbit of letting the fan turned on in the same room the tortoise is . By the first few days when I turned it off it had already affected her negatively
Thank God she is alright now I hope she remains healthy.
please read caresheets pinned on top of this section. In my opinion you are keeping him too cold and that is why his not active and gets better after providing him/her heat. Post pics of your enclosure and tell us bit more about temperatures that you provide for him. Extra information will allow forum members to give you directions for setting him in a correct manner. Good luck.
