intheriver
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2015
- Messages
- 4
Hello, and thanks for allowing me to join this forum!
A little about me...I have always been a fan of reptiles, turtles especially, but have never owned a tortoise until now. I understand reptile general requirements, having many snakes and lizards throughout the years. Since owning Frankie however, I find myself sponging massive amounts information from forums, sites, and books. Although Frankie appears to be thriving in her homemade tortoise table, I worry about her well-being constantly. There is so much to know and a ton of contradictory information out there. I just want to raise her properly.
Frankie is a Hermann's tortoise. Although uncertain of sex or age, I am fairly confident that she is less than one year old and female. I got her from a clean, privately owned, local pet store who's owner is a friend of a friend. Originally we had named her Frank because she came home to us around the time of Frank Sinatra's birthday Dec. 12, 2015. I am a Carpenter by trade and so, had no problem making a suitable tortoise table but will be upgrading her to a larger, more permanent home eventually. Her table is 48"x32", a monster in comparison to the tank she was in at the store. Her substrate is currently a 50/50 sand/coconut coir mixture with larger stones placed for scenery. I also have spider plants and cat grass growing in the table, though she doesn't attempt to eat any of it! Her hotspot air temp is a fairly constant 32c with a gradient to room temperature about 19-20c. Above the table is a repti-sun 5.0 T5HO 48" fixed 6-12" above the substrate. Lights come on at 7am and stay on until 8pm. In our climate humidity is very low and, after reading quite a bit on pyramiding, decided to use a repti-fogger for 1.5 hours in the am, .5 hours at noon and 1.5 hours before lights out. With this, I have managed to raise the humidity from 30-40% to, at times, 50-60%. With the fogger, however, the night time temps creep pretty low, around 15c. I even saw a low around 10c, but that may well have been due to the fogger coming on before lights. (Frankie was on the warm side, about 17C that night thankfully). Her diet is pretty limited due to winter conditions but I try to provide variety. She currently staples on Kale and dandelion leaf with a mix of romaine lettuce, raddish tops, brusselsprouts, cucumber occasionally. I supplement a couple times a week with calcium + d3 and try to sneak in some Zoo-med grassland tortoise pellets but, she is stubborn about them! I took a weight and SCL on January 10, 2016
60.7g 62mm) Febuary 14, 201669.2g 66mm) and March 5, 201681g 70mm). Sorry about the inconsistent dates, still getting used to it!
Sorry about the rant, just trying to give as much info a possible. Here are some pics as well, hope to hear input from the tortoise community.
A little about me...I have always been a fan of reptiles, turtles especially, but have never owned a tortoise until now. I understand reptile general requirements, having many snakes and lizards throughout the years. Since owning Frankie however, I find myself sponging massive amounts information from forums, sites, and books. Although Frankie appears to be thriving in her homemade tortoise table, I worry about her well-being constantly. There is so much to know and a ton of contradictory information out there. I just want to raise her properly.
Frankie is a Hermann's tortoise. Although uncertain of sex or age, I am fairly confident that she is less than one year old and female. I got her from a clean, privately owned, local pet store who's owner is a friend of a friend. Originally we had named her Frank because she came home to us around the time of Frank Sinatra's birthday Dec. 12, 2015. I am a Carpenter by trade and so, had no problem making a suitable tortoise table but will be upgrading her to a larger, more permanent home eventually. Her table is 48"x32", a monster in comparison to the tank she was in at the store. Her substrate is currently a 50/50 sand/coconut coir mixture with larger stones placed for scenery. I also have spider plants and cat grass growing in the table, though she doesn't attempt to eat any of it! Her hotspot air temp is a fairly constant 32c with a gradient to room temperature about 19-20c. Above the table is a repti-sun 5.0 T5HO 48" fixed 6-12" above the substrate. Lights come on at 7am and stay on until 8pm. In our climate humidity is very low and, after reading quite a bit on pyramiding, decided to use a repti-fogger for 1.5 hours in the am, .5 hours at noon and 1.5 hours before lights out. With this, I have managed to raise the humidity from 30-40% to, at times, 50-60%. With the fogger, however, the night time temps creep pretty low, around 15c. I even saw a low around 10c, but that may well have been due to the fogger coming on before lights. (Frankie was on the warm side, about 17C that night thankfully). Her diet is pretty limited due to winter conditions but I try to provide variety. She currently staples on Kale and dandelion leaf with a mix of romaine lettuce, raddish tops, brusselsprouts, cucumber occasionally. I supplement a couple times a week with calcium + d3 and try to sneak in some Zoo-med grassland tortoise pellets but, she is stubborn about them! I took a weight and SCL on January 10, 2016
60.7g 62mm) Febuary 14, 201669.2g 66mm) and March 5, 201681g 70mm). Sorry about the inconsistent dates, still getting used to it!Sorry about the rant, just trying to give as much info a possible. Here are some pics as well, hope to hear input from the tortoise community.
