Farishta's perplexing behaviour

Status
Not open for further replies.

Fiddlerchick

New Member
10 Year Member!
5 Year Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2007
Messages
37
Location (City and/or State)
Los Angeles, CA
Farishta’s perplexing me!

Hi again,

Here are examples of what Farishta is doing that I don’t understand…..

1. Her first house design included a 75-watt nighttime (red bulb) heat lamp which cast a small circle of possibly too-hot (ca. 110 degrees F) warmth into her 36”x24” house currently filled with too-cold aquarium gravel that will be changed to something more suitable this weekend. I was perplexed because she seemed to avoid the spot of heat and stay huddled in the corners (coldest points) of the enclosure most of the time. Her house is inside our currently freezing apartment. A gal working in a reptile-specialized pet store in San Diego I stopped into last weekend suggested that since the enclosure was so cold, she probably couldn’t find the heated spot since it was so small.

Anyway, since I added a ceramic heating unit a couple days ago she has been spending time under the heat source, although she seems a bit lethargic compared to how she acted since she has been with us (Dec 2nd ), but I wonder if that is because of the rainy, gloomy weather we have had all week…..This morning when I woke up I found her sound asleep with her neck stretched all the way out directly under the ceramic heater. I’ve never seen her do this before. Is this normal??? Before it started raining this week there were several evenings when she woke up after I came home from work and was very active for quite awhile before she settled down for the night.

The ambient temperature in much of the enclosure is now around 80 degrees F with warmer and cooler spots. Is that right, and since the thermometer I got last weekend reads 110 degrees when I place it directly under the heat sources, are the hot spots too hot?

2. The other thing I was concerned about is that while Farishta has been very conscientious about bathing on her own in the pool I put in her enclosure, I found her in the water having a bath when I woke up to go to work in the morning when the temperature would have been really cold, i.e., 50’s perhaps, and she also went in the water to have a bath when I came home from work after it was dark, although her UVB light was still on. This all occurred before I got the second heat source and the temperature in her enclosure was too cold for her, so I was terrified that she’d catch her death of cold! In both cases I fished her out, dried her off thoroughly and set her on the brick underneath the red heat lamp to warm her up. Is this normal behaviour??

Along these same lines, is it ok for me to give her a warm-water soak in the evening when I get home from work (ca. 6:00 PM) now that I am leaving her UVB light on for longer hours to keep her awake get her out of hibernation mode? Also, how warm is too warm for a soak?


Unfortunately I am only able to observe her during the daytime when she is most active on weekends, but I note evidence of her having done some interior redecorating during the day when I get home at night. E.g., the day after I added the mound of bark, the next day she apparently flattened it out and interspersed tufts of moss in it, then yesterday she piled all the bark up into a mound again (?!).

Thoughts??

Sorry about all the long-winded frantic posts and clueless questions – I’m a new first-time tort mom!

Thanks everyone as always for any insight and reassurance.

-Brenda K
 

egyptiandan

New Member
10 Year Member!
5 Year Member
Joined
Aug 31, 2007
Messages
5,788
Location (City and/or State)
USA
Hi Brenda,
That basking behavior is perfectly normal. :) It means she's settling in and very relaxed in her surroundings.
If your temperatures are getting into the 50's at night, she has gone into whats called wind down mode. Which means she thinks it's going to get colder, so she's stopped eating and is basking to clean out her gastric system.
To get her out of this your going to have to up her minimun night time temperature to 60F. Anywhere from 60 to 70F would be perfect.
The basking temperatures are fine as she will decide where she wants to sit and will not let herself get over heated.

Danny
 

jlyoncc1

Active Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Oct 3, 2007
Messages
2,038
Location (City and/or State)
NJ
Brenda, I just did my "before bed" check on my torts. Especially my one russian, Cian, sleeps the same way. All stretched out relaxed under the red night light. As long as they have cooler spots to move to, they will if they need to. I don't like my night temp to go under 70F. Personally, I feel it is too big of a flucuation in temp if it does.
 

Fiddlerchick

New Member
10 Year Member!
5 Year Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2007
Messages
37
Location (City and/or State)
Los Angeles, CA
Hi Danny and Dee,

So that's what normal basking looks like - deep sigh of relief, as I seriously thought she was almost dead when I went out to open the curtains and turn on her UVB light this morning, and was very happy that she opened her eyes when I called her name and asked anxiously if she was alright!!

I also wondered whether her going into the freezing-cold water in the early hours was some sort of Islamic ascetic ritual....

Thanks very much for the reassurance, since as fascinating as I find them, I have absolutely no intuitive sense for ectotherms - my expertise is concentrated in warm-blooded, small, furry carnivores that purr when they're happy.

By the way, she still hasn't eaten anything, but when I came home this evening I noted that she had strewn the contents of her food dish throughout her enclosure. This morning I gave her a cut-up tiny baby zucchini, a cherry tomato split in half, a small whole zucchini flower and some assorted organic baby greens, i.e., red leaf lettuce, spinach, frise and red chard with most of the oxalic acid-filled stem removed. She even threw the greens in the pool again! Is that a general tortoise thing, or a specific Farishta quirk?????

-BK
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

New Posts

Top