Aquired a tortie and really don't know where to start.

[Tillybud]

Hi, I have just acquired a tortie from my neighbour. My neighbour moved into her house in the late 70's and I am pretty sure she had the tortoise then. I have known the tortie for most of those years. Unfortunately, my neighbour is now coping with mild dementia (that does impact on her animals) and I have taken the tortie over, but I have absolutely no idea where to start.

The tortie has always roamed the garden freely over the summer months (night and day) and has been hibernated in a little hut with newspaper in, in the greenhouse over winter. When I checked on the tortoise a couple of days ago, it had woken from hibernation and was out of his hut, but of course I do not know when this happened as he had not been checked on.

At the moment I have him in my house and keeping an eye on him as I am worried it is still a little cold outside for him and I have to make the garden tortoise ready.

My neighbour always fed him cucumber and lettuce and I have offered him both, but he does not seem to be eating at the moment. There appears to be dark blobs that look like dead files, I am assuming that, that is his poo? I haven't seen a wee yet??

He never had water put out in the garden but I have already seen on this forum that they have water bowls/dishes? So I gave him one and then found his 'sat' in it. I also noticed on this forum that torties 'soak' as well, so thinking he wanted to do that I changed the bowl for a large tray but he just kept going in and out of it, I think he was looking for an escape.

I have no idea what kind of tortoise he is or even how old he is, although I will broach the age question in the next week or two.

I am feeling that it is a great responsibility at the moment.

I have always owned cats and dogs and currently have a bengal cat who seems slightly curious but not overly. I have read on this site to beware of cats, dogs and foxes which I am a little confused by. His owner always had cats and dogs (currently a dog) and they have always co-existed happily. We also have foxes on our avenue and in our gardens overnight and again, there hasn't been any problems?

Is there any advice you could give me please? Thank you.

 

[Tom]

Hello and welcome. Here is the care info:

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? 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. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

And more general info here:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

This tortoise needs the proper heating and lighting and it needs it ASAP.

 

[Tillybud]

Hello and welcome. Here is the care info:

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? 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. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

And more general info here:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

This tortoise needs the proper heating and lighting and it needs it ASAP.

Thank you for your response. I am trying to work my way through the heating and lighting information, although this tortie has never had heating and lighting. The food information is really useful but at the moment, I am worried because it is not eating? Do you know what kind of tortie he is please?

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

After winter sleep they need some time to "wake up" and start eating. Two things help: right temperatures to kickstart their metabolism and hydration (they lose fair amount of water during the winter, as their state of sleep is "half-active", they don't shutdown completely).

So, he needs daily soaking in lukewarm water for 15-20 minutes, offer food right after that. Offering him some space to warm up (a heated box with access to the garden) or indoors enclosure with an incandescent lamp will help. Keep him at temperatures over 65F day and night with a basking area of 95-100F to perk up.

He survived all this years without artifical heat and lights because tortoises are extremely resilient. It doesn't mean that it was 100% safe or beneficial.

I'm not really good at IDing species, but he looks like a greek tortoise to me.

 

[Tillybud]

After winter sleep they need some time to "wake up" and start eating. Two things help: right temperatures to kickstart their metabolism and hydration (they lose fair amount of water during the winter, as their state of sleep is "half-active", they don't shutdown completely).

So, he needs daily soaking in lukewarm water for 15-20 minutes, offer food right after that. Offering him some space to warm up (a heated box with access to the garden) or indoors enclosure with an incandescent lamp will help. Keep him at temperatures over 65F day and night with a basking area of 95-100F to perk up.

He survived all this years without artifical heat and lights because tortoises are extremely resilient. It doesn't mean that it was 100% safe or beneficial.

I'm not really good at IDing species, but he looks like a greek tortoise to me.

Thank you Alex, I really appreciate your feedback. I was becoming really fretful that he wasn't eating.

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

Thank you Alex, I really appreciate your feedback. I was becoming really fretful that he wasn't eating.

Please, keep us updated. I hope he will get back to normal soon!

 

[Tillybud]

Please, keep us updated. I hope he will get back to normal soon!

The sun was shining this morning albeit weak and hazy, so I put him in the garden. I have his old 'house' that used to live in the greenhouse and placed it on the periphery of my garden. Now interestingly I was thinking about his previous behaviour in his old garden last night, wondering if Torties know their surroundings because he very often ended up in the same place, on the soil and under a very large tree, regardless of weather and if he wanted to bury himself, he went to another part of the garden to do that. So this morning I put him out approx 10 feet from his 'house' and not facing his 'house'. When I put him down I had no thoughts about the house or anything else. I stayed with him and when he started to move, bizarrely he walked straight to his house until he touched it. I placed him across the doorway where he stayed for a while and then backed out and walked away from it. I know this was purely coincidental but again raised questions: Do they have any awareness of their surroundings? Does anybody know what sight they have? Can they hear? Can they smell? Just curious.

When he walked away from the house, he encountered a patch of Dandelion leaves and he ate them....he ate them. Phew, what a relief. He seemed to have quite a feast on them and a Dandelion flower, Now I know I can collect them and offer them to him. However, this had me pondering another question. I am assuming that Torties know what they can eat, what is safe and what is not. Is that the case or are any plants dangerous for them? Sorry for all the questions.

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

That's perfectly fine that you have questions and plenty of them I'll try to answer some:

1. Tortoises in the wild are covering miles daily foraging for food. Thus they are really good at mapping territory and remembering feeding sites. Some studies state that they navigate labyrinths better than rats. However, changes in environment and routines are stressful for them.

2. Tortoises have good full color vision and even can see more color spectrum than humans do (they perceive a part of ultraviolet bands). They have rather good sense of smell (can't compare to cats or dogs, but definitely better than ours). And yet they don't hear well, but are not deaf either.

3. They can to some extent distinguish poisonous plants from edible. But you can't rely on that in captivity: they are often mistaken with exotic plants, eat rare treats more than they should (e.g. berries) and can be just spoiled with grocery foods ignoring anything else.

Some safe foods are listed here (and in temperate species care sheet):

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

Also, you can check plant database on thetortoisetable.co.uk (if you know what's growing in your garden you can check it there, warnings about oxalates and oxalic acid can be mostly ignored).