BrowncoatForever
New Member
Hello!
I am very excited to be joining this forum as a new mom of a 1 month old Sulcata tortoise! Since it's impossible to know if the baby tortoise is a male or female, I decided to choose a pronoun and run with it until such time as I can determine whether or not I chose the right one - I'm going with female and have named my little tortoise Toph. I picked her up from Andrew with Arizona Tortoise Compound two days ago and she is (in my eyes) absolutely perfect! My avatar is a picture of her taking a little nap - so adorable.
I did have a question that I'm hoping someone can help with. I know baby tortoises sleep a lot, but Toph here seems.... narcoleptic. I expected that she would hide in her humid hide a lot and sleep there, but instead she just falls asleep everywhere; she will be walking along in the middle of her enclosure and just suddenly stop and fall asleep, all her little limbs spread out. I admit I thought she was dead the first time this happened, but no, she was just asleep. She will go to her food and act like she's going to eat, stretching out her neck to grab the food and then, snap, her eyes close and she's asleep. Then she'll wake up and walk around for a few minutes, and then stretch all her tiny limbs out and snap, her eyes close and she's asleep. Then she'll wake up, move around a bit, maybe go in her humid hide or climb up on her little climbing rock, and then snap, her eyes close and she's asleep. She even fell asleep during her soaking yesterday. It's seriously like she can't keep herself awake, like she's narcoleptic or something. I know the first thing you'll ask is her temperatures - the cool side stays between 78 (in the dead of night) and 85 and the hot side stays between 90 and 100 degrees. And we have a UVB bulb going all day, so she is getting her UV rays.
Do you think this is normal? I mean, it's kind of adorable, but I just want to make sure I shouldn't be concerned about her.
Thanks for all your help!
I am very excited to be joining this forum as a new mom of a 1 month old Sulcata tortoise! Since it's impossible to know if the baby tortoise is a male or female, I decided to choose a pronoun and run with it until such time as I can determine whether or not I chose the right one - I'm going with female and have named my little tortoise Toph. I picked her up from Andrew with Arizona Tortoise Compound two days ago and she is (in my eyes) absolutely perfect! My avatar is a picture of her taking a little nap - so adorable.
I did have a question that I'm hoping someone can help with. I know baby tortoises sleep a lot, but Toph here seems.... narcoleptic. I expected that she would hide in her humid hide a lot and sleep there, but instead she just falls asleep everywhere; she will be walking along in the middle of her enclosure and just suddenly stop and fall asleep, all her little limbs spread out. I admit I thought she was dead the first time this happened, but no, she was just asleep. She will go to her food and act like she's going to eat, stretching out her neck to grab the food and then, snap, her eyes close and she's asleep. Then she'll wake up and walk around for a few minutes, and then stretch all her tiny limbs out and snap, her eyes close and she's asleep. Then she'll wake up, move around a bit, maybe go in her humid hide or climb up on her little climbing rock, and then snap, her eyes close and she's asleep. She even fell asleep during her soaking yesterday. It's seriously like she can't keep herself awake, like she's narcoleptic or something. I know the first thing you'll ask is her temperatures - the cool side stays between 78 (in the dead of night) and 85 and the hot side stays between 90 and 100 degrees. And we have a UVB bulb going all day, so she is getting her UV rays.
Do you think this is normal? I mean, it's kind of adorable, but I just want to make sure I shouldn't be concerned about her.
Thanks for all your help!