My Hermes has been living in the slowly expanding indoor enclosure that I built for him (documented in this thread: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/h...closure-expansion-for-hermes-tortoise.208557/) since last Fall and finally finished to its current size a little over a month ago. And while it's still not really big enough, it does give him a lot more room to wander and it's as big as I can make it in the available space.
However, even though he has more than 4x the amount of space that he used to in the previous tiny indoor box, the entire much bigger box smells pretty bad lately, while the old box never really did. I've been cleaning up his poops whenever I find them, but no matter how much cleaning I do, including ventilating the box regularly, the poop stink doesn't go away. And I'm certain it's smelly poop and not something else since the odor is obviously following the droppings when I take them from the enclosure to be flushed in the bathroom down the hall.
I am wondering if it might be a diet issue, as he's been eating more grocery store greens while indoors (mostly spring mix salad) instead of just grazing on stuff in his outdoor enclosure during the summer, and the last package I bought apparently had a bunch of spinach in it that I didn't notice even though the package ingredients did not list spinach at all.
I've also given him two Mulberry leaves from the "baby" trees I have growing in the greenhouse portion of the enclosure, and he really seemed to like them a lot as he came running across the enclosure when I put them on his feeding stone. But it is the first time he's had Mulberry so it's an additional small change to his diet (in case it's relevant).
He also almost literally inhaled an entire good sized cactus pad (about 8 inches long by 6 inches wide and a little less than a half inch thick) in less than a 24 hour period about a week ago. A pad like that normally lasts him about a week of nibbling between eating other things. Shortly after that he made a "lake" of clear urine in the section of the box that has a hard floor (made of a big scrap of linoleum flooring) where his water dish and food rock are located to try to keep the dirt/bark substrate away from them. There was enough that the puddle spread to cover an area almost the size of the cactus pad itself and required quite a few paper towels to clean up. (Gross!) I guess the pad was still really juicy even though it's been in dry storage for several months. It's the first cactus pad he's had in at least 6 weeks, and maybe longer since I didn't keep track exactly when I gave him the last one.
I gave him a nice long warm soak on Saturday and he didn't pass anything at all while soaking, which is really unusual for him. I usually have to change the water a couple of times to get rid of the mess. I'm sure he's not actually constipated since he's definitely dropping little bombs all over in the enclosure. Possibly the opposite and he has the runs from the cactus juice? That could explain why it's so smelly...
Anyway, I'm hoping to get input and suggestions how to tell if he might be sick, or if he might just be experiencing some indigestion from the unintended extra spinach and the overdose of Opuntia.
And it would also be good if there's anything you can recommend that I should use or do to help clear out the stink so he doesn't have to live in it.
However, even though he has more than 4x the amount of space that he used to in the previous tiny indoor box, the entire much bigger box smells pretty bad lately, while the old box never really did. I've been cleaning up his poops whenever I find them, but no matter how much cleaning I do, including ventilating the box regularly, the poop stink doesn't go away. And I'm certain it's smelly poop and not something else since the odor is obviously following the droppings when I take them from the enclosure to be flushed in the bathroom down the hall.
I am wondering if it might be a diet issue, as he's been eating more grocery store greens while indoors (mostly spring mix salad) instead of just grazing on stuff in his outdoor enclosure during the summer, and the last package I bought apparently had a bunch of spinach in it that I didn't notice even though the package ingredients did not list spinach at all.
I've also given him two Mulberry leaves from the "baby" trees I have growing in the greenhouse portion of the enclosure, and he really seemed to like them a lot as he came running across the enclosure when I put them on his feeding stone. But it is the first time he's had Mulberry so it's an additional small change to his diet (in case it's relevant).
He also almost literally inhaled an entire good sized cactus pad (about 8 inches long by 6 inches wide and a little less than a half inch thick) in less than a 24 hour period about a week ago. A pad like that normally lasts him about a week of nibbling between eating other things. Shortly after that he made a "lake" of clear urine in the section of the box that has a hard floor (made of a big scrap of linoleum flooring) where his water dish and food rock are located to try to keep the dirt/bark substrate away from them. There was enough that the puddle spread to cover an area almost the size of the cactus pad itself and required quite a few paper towels to clean up. (Gross!) I guess the pad was still really juicy even though it's been in dry storage for several months. It's the first cactus pad he's had in at least 6 weeks, and maybe longer since I didn't keep track exactly when I gave him the last one.
I gave him a nice long warm soak on Saturday and he didn't pass anything at all while soaking, which is really unusual for him. I usually have to change the water a couple of times to get rid of the mess. I'm sure he's not actually constipated since he's definitely dropping little bombs all over in the enclosure. Possibly the opposite and he has the runs from the cactus juice? That could explain why it's so smelly...
Anyway, I'm hoping to get input and suggestions how to tell if he might be sick, or if he might just be experiencing some indigestion from the unintended extra spinach and the overdose of Opuntia.
And it would also be good if there's anything you can recommend that I should use or do to help clear out the stink so he doesn't have to live in it.
