I sold a perfectly Healthy hatching to a person who was going to give it to her niece for Christmas. The lady lives around 700 feet above sea level and her niece lives in the mountains. She took care of the turtle for a month. He was healthy and fine, eating and drinking. It gets to the nieces house, who lives in the mountains and it dies. Completely out of the blue
Altitude = death?
- Thread starter Riley ann
- Start date
It wasn't the altitude. More likely the temperatures.
Do you soak your hatchlings daily? Keep them on damp substrate with a humid hide? Do you use an brooder box set up? What incubation media?
Do you soak your hatchlings daily? Keep them on damp substrate with a humid hide? Do you use an brooder box set up? What incubation media?
They eat their substrate after hatching. Its important to move them to a brooder box ASAP after hatching. Give this a read through for more explanation: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-incubate-eggs-and-start-hatchlings.124266/
I asked those questions and I bring this up, because sometimes when they die it is the fault of the breeder even though it doesn't seem like it. Babies can be eating and behaving totally normally for weeks or months and then die suddenly because of something the breeder did, or didn't do, so long ago. I'm not saying that this is the case with your baby there. I'm saying that its a possibility to consider. If you talk to the buyers and are convinced that their temps were good, they soaked frequently, and they did everything "right", then you might need to examine what happened before the sale.
My best guess is still temps. I used to live in the mountains. It is cold there. And mountain folk just get used to the cold, but a baby tortoises won't.
So do any of the possibilities I've suggested sound plausible? What can we eliminate to solve this mystery?
He was at one point a runt and I was told by someone who wanted to buy him he wasn’t eating at their house. So I took him back and gave her the money back too. I used baby food in the water and he was fine. He was eating, drinking, and producing healthy stool. He was gaining weight and so I thought it was safe to find a home for him. This is what happened after.
This is truly a puzzling case.
Do you want to share with us your routine for starting hatchlings? We might see something that could help future babies.
Do you know what the temps were and how the baby was being housed and cared for at both of the more recent homes?
I'm sure we could figure it out, and I'm also sure that altitude wasn't the COD. Lots of reptiles live up in the mountains. I used to catch lizards and snakes up there all summer long.
I start them with the brooding box method with my incubator set at 85 degrees with a humid rage of 70-80 % then I move them to a real like habitat when their yolk sack is closed and No scar is left. They are kept at 85 degrees in the day and 80 at night. They are kept in a humid environment too.
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