Sulcata not eating much after about 1.5 years. Depression?

My tortoise is about one and a half years old. He was the biggest out of the four--three males and one female. The female used to always hang around him.

They became too big for the box so I moved them to an enclosed area I have outside. I still have a UV lamp running in case they need it and heat lamp for their sleeping and spot.

Gradually the second largest became bigger than him, and he became #2. The female then started hanging around the new largest male. Around this time I noticed he started to eat less. At this point he is now the smallest of the males and is about the same size as the female as everyone else kept growing.

I also notice that he likes to stay in one corner of the enclosure, facing the wall. Even at night when it gets cold here in the winter and I put him inside the warmed box, he will sometimes still come outside and stand in that corner facing the wall.

I don't know if he is depressed because of losing the female, or maybe he was already eating less before the female incident happened and that is why he got smaller as everyone else kept munching away and kept getting bigger.

He still eats but not that much. Please help.

Staying outside the box should never be an option. They need it 80 degrees at night. Being kept too cold is a good reason for one to stop eating.

What size night box and how are you heating it.

They don't need a UV lamp if they live outside. What type of UV bulb are you using?

At one and a half years old, you can't tell the sexes yet. What size are they?

Tom said:

Staying outside the box should never be an option. They need it 80 degrees at night. Being kept too cold is a good reason for one to stop eating.

What size night box and how are you heating it.

They don't need a UV lamp if they live outside. What type of UV bulb are you using?

At one and a half years old, you can't tell the sexes yet. What size are they?

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It's possible he goes outside again even after I put him there. My house has a 8x10 foot area in the middle of the floor plan. It has an open roof but there is not a lot of direct sunlight, maybe just one hour or two in a small area. I have the UV lamp (mercury vapor bulb) on a timer that coincides with the daytime and they seem to need it, especially in the winter months.

Their sleeping area has the heater in it, it's about 20" x 30" or so. The largest turtle is huge compared to the others, he is probably 6-7" long and the rest are about 5.5" to 6" long. I thought I read somewhere that the males have longer visible tales and the females don't. This is how I determined sex, but in any case the smallest turtle seemed to switch favorites and maybe this is causing sadness? Are they even smart enough to have these emotions? I didn't think so.

The most common cause for a tortoise to slow down or stop eating is because he's not warm enough.

Makes sense. Any reason he would leave the warm enclosure every night and stand in the corner and face the wall?

In addition to sub-optimal ambient temps, He’s possibly being “bullied” by one of the others and going outside to get away from them. Might also explain the now smaller size in relation to the others. You have four all together, right?

tortoise-n00b said:

Makes sense. Any reason he would leave the warm enclosure every night and stand in the corner and face the wall?

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They don't have the sense to stay in a warm area. You have to lock them in the warm area at night. In the wild, anywhere they go is warm enough. They don't understand the concept of "its too cold here and I need to move to a heated area...".

I can't envision the enclosure you are describing. Can you post some pics?

You usually can't tell the sexes on sulcatas until they are around 14". They don't have "favorites". What you are seeing is likely bullying and intimidation of some sort.

Maro2Bear said:

In addition to sub-optimal ambient temps, He’s possibly being “bullied” by one of the others and going outside to get away from them. Might also explain the now smaller size in relation to the others. You have four all together, right?

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You know what? I did actually get a feeling about that. The now largest one has always acted like a meth addict, even when he was small. The now smallest one, who used to be the biggest, was always super calm.

I noticed sometimes the big one was blocking the entrance to the door, but I just assumed he is an idiot because turtles are idiots. The big one also walks all over everyone and climbs all over everyone else all the time, ever since he was little.

Yes I have them all together, not sure if I need to separate them now. It almost feels like everyone is against the little guy now.

tortoise-n00b said:

You know what? I did actually get a feeling about that. The now largest one has always acted like a meth addict, even when he was small. The now smallest one, who used to be the biggest, was always super calm.

I noticed sometimes the big one was blocking the entrance to the door, but I just assumed he is an idiot because turtles are idiots. The big one also walks all over everyone and climbs all over everyone else all the time, ever since he was little.

Yes I have them all together, not sure if I need to separate them now. It almost feels like everyone is against the little guy now.

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I'd say it's definitely past time for separation. What you are witnessing is not an act of idiocy, but an act of dominance that occurs naturally with the species.

tortoise-n00b said:

You know what? I did actually get a feeling about that. The now largest one has always acted like a meth addict, even when he was small. The now smallest one, who used to be the biggest, was always super calm.

I noticed sometimes the big one was blocking the entrance to the door, but I just assumed he is an idiot because turtles are idiots. The big one also walks all over everyone and climbs all over everyone else all the time, ever since he was little.

Yes I have them all together, not sure if I need to separate them now. It almost feels like everyone is against the little guy now.

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That is a tough call. Usually juveniles are fine as groups, but there are occasional exceptions. I suspect your problem may be due to temperatures being too low, especially at night.

It would really help to see your enclosure. I am betting there are not enough hides and sight barriers. No way for one to get away from or out of sight of another. Tortoises do not feel secure unless there is a place they can hide under cover of some sort. With a small group, you would need a few hide choices. I really like enough hides for every tortoise to have it's own place, even though a few may double up, they still have a choice.

Mizcreant said:

I'd say it's definitely past time for separation. What you are witnessing is not an act of idiocy, but an act of dominance that occurs naturally with the species.

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But he has been doing the walking over others thing since he was 3 months old.

Here is a picture of the enclosure. Some houses in the 70s here in California had this lame design where they had a 10'x10', or thereabouts, opening in the middle of the house with an exposed roof. This place we are renting had gravel all over the inside, so I covered it all with a tarp for fear of the gravel scratching their undersides. I removed the gravel in their the hide spots so they can dig there.

You can see in the back was their original hiding area that I built from some 2x4's. This was in the summer when it was super hot, but now in the winter it is cold so I got a storage container, turned it upside down, insulation on top and put a ceramic heat element inside. It gets to about 85-90 F in there. We use the lid as a plate for their food to try to keep things a little clean.

To the right of the 2x4 hide spot is where the turtle in question likes to go. He sometimes goes to that corner at night or the day, no idea why. One time I watched him eat and then others came to join him--then he just left and went to the corner. I just now put another upside down storage container in that corner. I may add heat etc if I can't figure whats going on. Just now I took a peak inside their hide spot and everyone was neatly laying in a row under the heat element.

These days it's pretty cold so I leave the heat on 24 hours a day in their hide spot. The turtle in question doesn't come out very much. He does eat but not a lot. I was wrong in stating he was the smallest, he is actually still the 2nd largest but not by much. The previous second largest has surpassed him by a lot and he is an eating machine.

@tortoise-n00b

The entire enclosure, including the ground, needs to be no lower than 80 degrees, day or night. If you place a thermometer on the floor of their enclosure, or use a temp gun, what does it read?

When you say "enclosure" do you mean their heated sleeping/hide area or the entire living area? I don't have a heat gun but just from touch alone it's much warmer than 80 degrees inside their sleeping area. Outside that area it is cooler during the daytime this time of year. Right now it's 67.

As I finished writing my last post I walked by the turtles and I noticed the turtle in question is now eating by himself, much later as everyone else already came out and sunbathed and ate. As I said before, I noticed other solitary behavior such as leaving the food when the others came out to eat, avoiding the heated hiding area in favor of standing next to and facing the corner of a wall (he might think he is hidden by doing this).

For whatever reason it seems like he doesn't want to be next to the others or maybe one particular turtle. Perhaps separating them would be best. I was thinking I could make a room divider and then I'd just have to make two heated sleeping areas and two UV light areas.

A little more work for you, but it will have lasting benefits. My Russian is so grumpy he attacks anything that wanders into his enclosure so bugs and more beware. Torts are like people some are just chill and some are just big headed bullies.

A lot of this is just my guess, it doesn’t always seem to be the case. For example right now here is the scene. The turtle in question is on the wood 2x4 and he is next to the biggest turtle, that used to be smaller than him just a few months ago.

tortoise-n00b said:

You know what? I did actually get a feeling about that. The now largest one has always acted like a meth addict, even when he was small. The now smallest one, who used to be the biggest, was always super calm.

I noticed sometimes the big one was blocking the entrance to the door, but I just assumed he is an idiot because turtles are idiots. The big one also walks all over everyone and climbs all over everyone else all the time, ever since he was little.

Yes I have them all together, not sure if I need to separate them now. It almost feels like everyone is against the little guy now.

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Funny, anything that comes when called isn’t an “idiot”. Yes I believe they have feelings. I also know they will die without enough heat