Leopard tortoise behaviour

[CeeTee]

Hi there,

We took in a leopard tortoise recently and have had her about a month. She is in a large tortoise table inside currently as im in the UK and its winter here now, with a lamp and heat mat and she also comes out for a bit of exercise etc during the day (supervised). She is roughly 6 years old.
Her stools are quite loose and have been since we had her, we thought this may be due to a change in diet as we're not sure her previous owners were giving her much variety. We are feeding her a variety of greens like spring green, kale, cabbage, parsley, basil along with tomatoes, cucumber and carrot occasionally. I use calcium powder every other day and she has hay/grass in her enclosure at all times but her stools haven't firmed up as yet and was wondering if this is normal?
The other thing is that at times the last few days she hasn't moved much in her enclosure, choosing instead to spend most of her time under her lamp and seeming quite sleepy. She is eating well still.
I have her booked in next week for a checkup at a local vets but hoping for some insight as to normal behaviour this time of year?
Thank so much if you've read this far!

 

[Tom]

Hi there,

We took in a leopard tortoise recently and have had her about a month. She is in a large tortoise table inside currently as im in the UK and its winter here now, with a lamp and heat mat and she also comes out for a bit of exercise etc during the day (supervised). She is roughly 6 years old.
Her stools are quite loose and have been since we had her, we thought this may be due to a change in diet as we're not sure her previous owners were giving her much variety. We are feeding her a variety of greens like spring green, kale, cabbage, parsley, basil along with tomatoes, cucumber and carrot occasionally. I use calcium powder every other day and she has hay/grass in her enclosure at all times but her stools haven't firmed up as yet and was wondering if this is normal?
The other thing is that at times the last few days she hasn't moved much in her enclosure, choosing instead to spend most of her time under her lamp and seeming quite sleepy. She is eating well still.
I have her booked in next week for a checkup at a local vets but hoping for some insight as to normal behaviour this time of year?
Thank so much if you've read this far!

The following is intended to help. I'm not attacking you or insulting you. If no one tells you what is wrong, you can't fix it and this tortoise will die.

I'll list the problems, and then leave a link to the correct care info:
1. You cannot maintain the correct conditions for this species in an open topped table. That is like trying to heat your house in winter with no roof. The only time open topped tables work is in the case of adult temperate species where the room conditions are suitable for the tortoise. You need a large closed chamber, or you need to heat an entire room.
2. Loose on the floor is not safe and can't be made safe. They will find a way to harm or kill themselves, as you are seeing. We see several instances of this here on the forum every year. Keep the tortoise in its safe warm enclosure.
3. Reptile or human heat mats are not safe for indoor type tortoise enclosures. In an open table, they are also not effective at heating the enclosure.
4. Regular leopards don't eat grass or hay. This is a mold risk if your substrate is properly damp as it should be.
5. You are feeding the wrong foods. Almost all of those are terrible tortoise foods. They should be eating weeds, leaves, flowers, and spineless opuntia pads. Grocery store foods should be avoided unless there is simply nothing else available, like during winter. If grocery store greens must be used out of necessity, you should favor endive and escarole as your staples, and add in some arugula, cilantro, Italian dandelion, collard, turnip, and mustard greens, kale, etc.. for variety. Avoid cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes, carrots and other such inappropriate foods. This is one reason for the liquid stools. These grocery store foods need to have amendments added to make them more suitable. This is all explained in the care sheet I will leave for you.
6. Calcium should only be needed about once or twice a week for a 6 year old leopard. Too much calcium too often can interfere with the absorption of other important nutrients and trace elements.
7. This tortoise needs warmth and it needs it now and consistently. You are probably well on your way to a respiratory infection, if not already there. Normal temps would be a minimum of 26-27C in the whole enclosure over night, and daytime ambient creeping up to around 32 during the day. Ambient, as in the entire enclosure needs to be this warm. This is in addition to the basking lamp where is is 36-37 at tortoise shell height directly under it. This is all day, every day for this species. These are optimal temps. Can they survive lower temps? Sure. They often do, but lower temps are not "good" for them, and frequently lead to death or sickness. Because yours is already showing signs temperature distress, I would go a little warmer than these temps for a few weeks and then gradually drop down to these temps.
8. Be very careful using heat lamps for larger higher domed tortoises. There comes a point where heat lamps are no longer effective at warming their core, and there is a serious risk of "slow-burning" the top of the carapace, in a futile attempt to get them warm. Check the temperature under the lamp at the same height as the top of your tortoise's carapace, not at the ground level. Adjust the height of your basking lamp as needed.
9. Tortoises need enormous enclosures. A normal 6 year old leopard would need a whole room sized enclosure, but you didn't say the size of yours. Even a juvenile needs something 4x8 feet or larger depending on the size of the tortoise.
10. You also need the correct bright lighting. Lots of LEDs in the correct color spectrum, a good strong UV the for mid day use, and whatever basking lamps you are using.
11. Be very careful using a veterinarian. There is no semester on tortoise care in vet school, and most of them misdiagnose, get their info from the same wrong sources as everyone else, and do more harm than good. Refuse any "vitamin injections" or calcium. Lack of vitamins is NOT this tortoises problem and will do more harm than good. Like wise with antibiotics at this point. This tortoise's problem is low temperatures and incorrect housing. A vet can't fix that. Only YOU can.

This is a very challenging species to keep in your climate. It won't be cheap or easy. Huge enclosures and tropical temperatures are not easy to accomplish in your country. I wish you good luck and good fortune in your attempt.

Here is the correct care info. Please read through this whole ting a couple of times, and then please feel free to ask lots of questions. We are all here to help and to talk tortoises all day every day!

The Best Way To Raise A Sulcata, Leopard, Or Star Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. Babies hatch during the...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[wellington]

Tom covered it for you. If you follow all he said and listed for you, your tort should recover if not too late.

 

[CeeTee]

The following is intended to help. I'm not attacking you or insulting you. If no one tells you what is wrong, you can't fix it and this tortoise will die.

I'll list the problems, and then leave a link to the correct care info:
1. You cannot maintain the correct conditions for this species in an open topped table. That is like trying to heat your house in winter with no roof. The only time open topped tables work is in the case of adult temperate species where the room conditions are suitable for the tortoise. You need a large closed chamber, or you need to heat an entire room.
2. Loose on the floor is not safe and can't be made safe. They will find a way to harm or kill themselves, as you are seeing. We see several instances of this here on the forum every year. Keep the tortoise in its safe warm enclosure.
3. Reptile or human heat mats are not safe for indoor type tortoise enclosures. In an open table, they are also not effective at heating the enclosure.
4. Regular leopards don't eat grass or hay. This is a mold risk if your substrate is properly damp as it should be.
5. You are feeding the wrong foods. Almost all of those are terrible tortoise foods. They should be eating weeds, leaves, flowers, and spineless opuntia pads. Grocery store foods should be avoided unless there is simply nothing else available, like during winter. If grocery store greens must be used out of necessity, you should favor endive and escarole as your staples, and add in some arugula, cilantro, Italian dandelion, collard, turnip, and mustard greens, kale, etc.. for variety. Avoid cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes, carrots and other such inappropriate foods. This is one reason for the liquid stools. These grocery store foods need to have amendments added to make them more suitable. This is all explained in the care sheet I will leave for you.
6. Calcium should only be needed about once or twice a week for a 6 year old leopard. Too much calcium too often can interfere with the absorption of other important nutrients and trace elements.
7. This tortoise needs warmth and it needs it now and consistently. You are probably well on your way to a respiratory infection, if not already there. Normal temps would be a minimum of 26-27C in the whole enclosure over night, and daytime ambient creeping up to around 32 during the day. Ambient, as in the entire enclosure needs to be this warm. This is in addition to the basking lamp where is is 36-37 at tortoise shell height directly under it. This is all day, every day for this species. These are optimal temps. Can they survive lower temps? Sure. They often do, but lower temps are not "good" for them, and frequently lead to death or sickness. Because yours is already showing signs temperature distress, I would go a little warmer than these temps for a few weeks and then gradually drop down to these temps.
8. Be very careful using heat lamps for larger higher domed tortoises. There comes a point where heat lamps are no longer effective at warming their core, and there is a serious risk of "slow-burning" the top of the carapace, in a futile attempt to get them warm. Check the temperature under the lamp at the same height as the top of your tortoise's carapace, not at the ground level. Adjust the height of your basking lamp as needed.
9. Tortoises need enormous enclosures. A normal 6 year old leopard would need a whole room sized enclosure, but you didn't say the size of yours. Even a juvenile needs something 4x8 feet or larger depending on the size of the tortoise.
10. You also need the correct bright lighting. Lots of LEDs in the correct color spectrum, a good strong UV the for mid day use, and whatever basking lamps you are using.
11. Be very careful using a veterinarian. There is no semester on tortoise care in vet school, and most of them misdiagnose, get their info from the same wrong sources as everyone else, and do more harm than good. Refuse any "vitamin injections" or calcium. Lack of vitamins is NOT this tortoises problem and will do more harm than good. Like wise with antibiotics at this point. This tortoise's problem is low temperatures and incorrect housing. A vet can't fix that. Only YOU can.

This is a very challenging species to keep in your climate. It won't be cheap or easy. Huge enclosures and tropical temperatures are not easy to accomplish in your country. I wish you good luck and good fortune in your attempt.

Here is the correct care info. Please read through this whole ting a couple of times, and then please feel free to ask lots of questions. We are all here to help and to talk tortoises all day every day!

The Best Way To Raise A Sulcata, Leopard, Or Star Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. Babies hatch during the...

tortoiseforum.org

Thank you for your reply. I should say that the setup she currently has is the same she has had for the last 6 years, her lamp is UV and we had this type confirmed as the right kind for a leopard tortoise and the room she is in never drops below the required temp at night. I've tested the temperature under her lamp where she basks and its warm enough and also where she hides away to sleep
Today she was very alert and moving around lots, as she is normally since we had her here.
I'll look into what the food is here in the UK that you recommended but I guess some isn't going to be available here so easy. I had read on other sites about food and everything we've offered was listed as good options, so confusing with different information everywhere.
Again, thank you so much for your time and help

 

[wellington]

Thank you for your reply. I should say that the setup she currently has is the same she has had for the last 6 years, her lamp is UV and we had this type confirmed as the right kind for a leopard tortoise and the room she is in never drops below the required temp at night. I've tested the temperature under her lamp where she basks and its warm enough and also where she hides away to sleep
Today she was very alert and moving around lots, as she is normally since we had her here.
I'll look into what the food is here in the UK that you recommended but I guess some isn't going to be available here so easy. I had read on other sites about food and everything we've offered was listed as good options, so confusing with different information everywhere.
Again, thank you so much for your time and help

The info you got before is wrong!
What exactly are the temps that got confirmed as being correct?
Please do yourself and the tort a favor and forget what you learned before and follow the care on this forum. This forum has the most updated correct info.
We also need to know exact info not just answering that things are correct as you learned from some other source or we won't be able to accurately help you.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Hello, I have a leopard tortoise, too.

Loose stools are a sign of the wrong diet. What goes in effects what comes out. My leopard tortoise eats most of the food Tom listed above and his poop looks like a combination of dog poop and horse poop. Logs like a dog's but with more of the horse poop/grass look.

Don't underestimate the temperatures. As warm blooded mammals we have a hard time comprehending how the ambient temperatures truly affect our ectothermic pets. Trust me though, we almost always assume temps are warm enough when they are not. Behavior is the best way to tell for sure. If they aren't wildly active and on the move, they aren't warm enough. You might have the ideal "hot spot" in just that, a single spot. When what you really need is that temperature in a zone. A large area where it is that temperature throughout the whole area to include every inch of your tortoise and then some.
I like the analogy of trying to heat your house without a roof. That was a very accurate comparison.

My biggest reason to discourage a tortoise walking around on the floor piggy backs on the previous point. It's just not warm enough. Then add all the other risks and it's a no for me.

If you have a tortoise vet who 1, keeps tortoises at pets and 2, keeps them correctly, then you are so lucky. That's a great source to have! But if your vet is going to quote care from a book he quickly skimmed before entering the exam room, then you are in dangerous territory. You will want to trust him because of his position but it's highly unlikely the advice will be what your tortoise truly needs. It's a bummer reality.

People like Tom, Wellington and myself are here to share advice with people like you because we actually care about your tortoise. We have been through the ringer and experienced things that work and things that don't. We have nothing to gain, no business that will profit, no reason to lie to you.

I hope you can believe that.

 

[Tom]

Thank you for your reply. I should say that the setup she currently has is the same she has had for the last 6 years, her lamp is UV and we had this type confirmed as the right kind for a leopard tortoise and the room she is in never drops below the required temp at night. I've tested the temperature under her lamp where she basks and its warm enough and also where she hides away to sleep
Today she was very alert and moving around lots, as she is normally since we had her here.
I'll look into what the food is here in the UK that you recommended but I guess some isn't going to be available here so easy. I had read on other sites about food and everything we've offered was listed as good options, so confusing with different information everywhere.
Again, thank you so much for your time and help.

Most of the tortoise care advice given from pet shops, vets, breeders and online is all the same old wrong info. That is why you are having this problem. You've been given the wrong info.

What type of UV bulb have you got? I have no doubt someone trying to make money told you its the right bulb, but chances are very good that is is NOT the right one.

The set up this tortoise has been in for 6 years was probably all wrong from day one, and the tortoise should certainly have outgrown it by now. What size is your tortoise?

The room you keep that tortoise in never drops below 27C? Not at night in winter? If yes, that is great! It is just very unusual as most people don't maintain 27C rooms in their houses.

You've got a problem. Your tortoise is telling you through its behavior that something is wrong. We will help you solve it if you let us.

 

[CeeTee]

Most of the tortoise care advice given from pet shops, vets, breeders and online is all the same old wrong info. That is why you are having this problem. You've been given the wrong info.

What type of UV bulb have you got? I have no doubt someone trying to make money told you its the right bulb, but chances are very good that is is NOT the right one.

The set up this tortoise has been in for 6 years was probably all wrong from day one, and the tortoise should certainly have outgrown it by now. What size is your tortoise?

The room you keep that tortoise in never drops below 27C? Not at night in winter? If yes, that is great! It is just very unusual as most people don't maintain 27C rooms in their houses.

You've got a problem. Your tortoise is telling you through its behavior that something is wrong. We will help you solve it if you let us.

It's a 100w UV basking lamp. She's roughly 33cm in length and 30cm in width.

I was testing temps in her enclosure and in the area her lamp is, which is at one end of her enclosure it was at the temps you recommended and I moved it around a bit. The other side, and where she sleeps was at around 24c so slightly cooler than you recommended. What would you recommend to increase that?

I've researched the food you recommended and will be getting some additional items to try her with.

We inherited this setup but obviously we want to do the right thing for her. The room she's in does not get up to 27c as you recommended and I doubt this will ever have been the case in her life so far, during winter especially in this country. Which is a worry based on your advice!

Thanks again for the replies