Consistently trying to escape

[melissamtga]

Hello all. Please feel free to delete this post or re-locate if it is not allowed here. I am new to the forum so I'm not quite sure what I'm doing.

I have a male russian tortoise, who is around 16 years of age. Ever since I got him years ago, he has spent endless hours crawling the walls. He has the proper setup. Proper lights, diet (with supplements), heating and cooling. There is a temperature gradient. Mid to low humidity. He has a huge enclosure with lots of things to crawl inside of, as well as on top of and over. I change it up as often as I can and I also just built him an outdoor enclosure.

My question is... why is he behaving like this? The space is not the issue, and I can't imagine that there is anything else seriously wrong. Vet said he looks good.

Another quick note... he is always trying to get underneath the liner I keep in his tortoise table. He pokes holes in it with his nails and tries everything he can to get under it. Mind you, this section he always manages to break is right under his UVA/UVB bulb so I spend hours watching him closely in fear that he will get stuck.

Is this behavior normal? Anyone else experience this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Eduardo Hernandez]

Can you post pictures of your enclosure? Also, more information in terms of exact temps and humidity. A lot of times, people base their temps based off old information, so what you might think is perfect temps might actually be too hot/cold.

Usually, torts pace when in too small enclosures, when it’s too hot, or just out of boredom. But without more information we can’t really help.

 

[Tom]

I was going to say just what Eduardo said. Terms like "good" or "proper" don't tell us what we need to know.

What are your four temps? Warm side, cool side, basking area and over night low?
What equipment are you using to maintain these temps?
Any UV? What type of bulb and how far from the tortoise is it?
What substrate are you using and how deep?
How tall are the walls of your tortoise table?
What are the dimensions of the tortoise table?

The answers to these questions should give us more insight into what might be going on there. Pics of the closure might help too.