Heat Mat for Night?

Jay's Turbo

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Hi, Our 6 month old Hermann tortoise arrived on Thursday. This morning (Sunday) we discovered that he had little bubbles coming out of one nostril. I am concerned about upper respiratory tract infection and rang the tortoise shop we purchased him from. They have said that he should have a heat mat for nighttime. Is this correct?

Our current set up is a tortoise table where the daytime temperature gradient is 20C to 32C. The heat is provided by a suspended bulb which also provides UV light. At night the temperature drops to a minimum of 10C. Should we get a heat mat for his sleeping hide?

Thank you for any help.

Andrea
 

Yvonne G

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Hi Andrea: 10C is much too cold for a baby tortoise. You can buy a CHE (ceramic heat emitter) to have on at night. They provide heat without light:

ceramic heat emitter.jpg
 

Jay's Turbo

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Thank you. I have just ordered one. It will arrive tomorrow, so I will keep our heating on o er night tonight.
 

Yossarian

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Thank you. I have just ordered one. It will arrive tomorrow, so I will keep our heating on o er night tonight.

You should run the CHE off a thermostat, that way it only turns on when the temp drops below the target temperature, they put out a lot of infrared energy, they can’t really be left on continuously.
 

Tom

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Hi, Our 6 month old Hermann tortoise arrived on Thursday. This morning (Sunday) we discovered that he had little bubbles coming out of one nostril. I am concerned about upper respiratory tract infection and rang the tortoise shop we purchased him from. They have said that he should have a heat mat for nighttime. Is this correct?

Our current set up is a tortoise table where the daytime temperature gradient is 20C to 32C. The heat is provided by a suspended bulb which also provides UV light. At night the temperature drops to a minimum of 10C. Should we get a heat mat for his sleeping hide?

Thank you for any help.

Andrea
Heat mats should never be used under tortoises. Its not safe and works against their instincts.

Pet shops will almost always give you bad tortoise advice and sell you the wrong products.

Perfect advice from Yvonne and Yossarian, but I would add that babies are much easier to maintain in a viv than an open table, and especially if room temp is only at 10C. An adult can handle 10C if it can warm up daily, but I wouldn't let a baby drop much below 21C.

Because you probably got all sorts of other wrong advice from the pet shop, here is the current and correct care info: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/the-best-way-to-raise-any-temperate-species-of-tortoise.183131/
 
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