Heat lamp issues

[Alex Madden-Beatley]

Hello!

I am having a couple of issues and would love some feedback. The first, my heat lamp keeps burning out! I have checked the wattage and this keeps happening. Does anyone have advice on how to prevent this from happening? I am beginning to think this might be an electrical issue in the socket, but who knows...

Second, my tort loves basking under the heat lamp for the majority of the day even though my cage is around 80 degrees all day with humidity around 40 in the cage and 80 in the humid hide where Olive sleeps every night. The other day when I gave Olive a soak, a ton of white urates came out, which were hard. It was much more than usual and it really scared me. Olive every other day will have small amounts come out, but they are usually more toothpaste consistency. Could the heat lamps be drying/dehydrating Olive out more so than usual? Or could that have been an accumulation of urates that didn't pass?

I have been feeding Olive normal lettuce with 1-2 Mazuri pellets and wheat grass mixed in. I try to mix this up with some rose petals and dandelions, but Olive's diet has mostly been this combo for the past 2 weeks.

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

 

[wellington]

The whole enclosure should be 80% humidity. As for the bulb burning out. If it's a Mercury vapor bulb, it needs to hang straight, don't move it around a lot and needs a ceramic socket and a socket that will except the wattage of the bulb. The diet needs much more things added to it.

 

[JoesMum]

Hello Alex

You need to read and take in the information in these sheets. They cover everything from diet to temperature and everything in between.

Beginner Mistakes
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/beginner-mistakes.45180/

How to raise a healthy sulcata
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-raise-a-healthy-sulcata-or-leopard-version-2-0.79895/

For those who have a young sulcata
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/for-those-who-have-a-young-sulcata.76744/

 

[Tom]

I agree with what Joe's Mum and Wellington said.

What type of bulb are you using? What type of fixture? How is it mounted?

About the urates: Are you soaking daily?

All the answers to these issues are contained in the threads that Joe's Mum linked for you. Give those a read through and then come back with all your questions.

 

[Yvonne G]

If you have one of those MVBs and it's mounted in a regular Bakelite (type of plastic) fixture, that's probably your problem. Those bulbs get very hot and have to be mounted in a ceramic fixture. Or if you're using any kind of spot light, same thing.

 

[Alex Madden-Beatley]

I agree with what Joe's Mum and Wellington said.

What type of bulb are you using? What type of fixture? How is it mounted?

About the urates: Are you soaking daily?

All the answers to these issues are contained in the threads that Joe's Mum linked for you. Give those a read through and then come back with all your questions.

Thanks for the response! I believe I have fixed my bulb issue... I know have the timer plugged into a surge protector and it seems to be working. The bulbs are plugged into ceramic fixtures that are suspended, not fixed.

I have re-designed my cage into a greenhouse like set up to insulate and retain humidity. So far it has increased both. I soak my tort 4-5 times a week, if not almost every day because of how dry it is here. As for diet, Olive can be picky and won't eat some of the varied food I give it. So far I have been able to feed Olive rose petals/hibiscus flowers, cactus pads, dandelion greens, lettuces (arugula, butter, romaine etc. ), endive, Mazuri pellets, and tops of carrots or other veggies. Olive won't eat wheat grass, mustard greens, beet leaves, and some other greens.

How can I get more grass/weed into my tortoise's diet? Would you recommend growing my own until I can live in a house with a backyard? Even though I can get some greens and other variety of greens from outside vegetation, I am worried about pesticides used on them.

 

[Big Charlie]

Thanks for the response! I believe I have fixed my bulb issue... I know have the timer plugged into a surge protector and it seems to be working. The bulbs are plugged into ceramic fixtures that are suspended, not fixed.

I have re-designed my cage into a greenhouse like set up to insulate and retain humidity. So far it has increased both. I soak my tort 4-5 times a week, if not almost every day because of how dry it is here. As for diet, Olive can be picky and won't eat some of the varied food I give it. So far I have been able to feed Olive rose petals/hibiscus flowers, cactus pads, dandelion greens, lettuces (arugula, butter, romaine etc. ), endive, Mazuri pellets, and tops of carrots or other veggies. Olive won't eat wheat grass, mustard greens, beet leaves, and some other greens.

How can I get more grass/weed into my tortoise's diet? Would you recommend growing my own until I can live in a house with a backyard? Even though I can get some greens and other variety of greens from outside vegetation, I am worried about pesticides used on them.

Yes, grow your own. There is a tortoise seed mix you can buy.

 

[Tom]

Thanks for the response! I believe I have fixed my bulb issue... I know have the timer plugged into a surge protector and it seems to be working. The bulbs are plugged into ceramic fixtures that are suspended, not fixed.

I have re-designed my cage into a greenhouse like set up to insulate and retain humidity. So far it has increased both. I soak my tort 4-5 times a week, if not almost every day because of how dry it is here. As for diet, Olive can be picky and won't eat some of the varied food I give it. So far I have been able to feed Olive rose petals/hibiscus flowers, cactus pads, dandelion greens, lettuces (arugula, butter, romaine etc. ), endive, Mazuri pellets, and tops of carrots or other veggies. Olive won't eat wheat grass, mustard greens, beet leaves, and some other greens.

How can I get more grass/weed into my tortoise's diet? Would you recommend growing my own until I can live in a house with a backyard? Even though I can get some greens and other variety of greens from outside vegetation, I am worried about pesticides used on them.

Start adding new foods by finely chopping up a tiny amount of the new stuff and throughly mixing it in with the old favorites. This should be particularly easy to do with grasses.

 

[Alex Madden-Beatley]

Yes, grow your own. There is a tortoise seed mix you can buy.

How would you recommend growing grasses indoors? It will start snowing in the next couple months so I would need to grow some inside for my tort to graze on