Hibernation Question

[daveyjones1972]

Hello, everyone —

Our tortoise at a piece of a thin styrofoam plate. Basically the piece was the size of his mouth. I understand that those will usually pass on their own, but we’ve got a complication: we’re about three miles from the Bobcat fire in Southern California. We’re well out of harm’s way, but the smoke in the area is horrendous and the air quality is very poor, so we brought him inside during all this (which is how he got access to the plate).

We’ve basically been treating it like a rainy day, keeping him at household temperature (which is around 75 degrees). I set up a basking spot with a mega ray, but I fear he might try and hibernate because it’s pretty dark inside the house right now (and is September). He dumped a huge amount of urate today, about the amount in a large tube of toothpaste, and roughly the same consistency.

Here are the fears:

1) If we put him outside, the bad air agitates his lungs, but he doesn’t go into hibernation with a piece of styrofoam in his gut

2) If we keep him inside, he’s safe from the ashy air, but he might go into hibernation with the piece of styrofoam in his gut

Would he be better off back outside? He doesn’t have a burrow, but he does have two good size dog houses. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Tom]

Hello, everyone —

Our tortoise at a piece of a thin styrofoam plate. Basically the piece was the size of his mouth. I understand that those will usually pass on their own, but we’ve got a complication: we’re about three miles from the Bobcat fire in Southern California. We’re well out of harm’s way, but the smoke in the area is horrendous and the air quality is very poor, so we brought him inside during all this (which is how he got access to the plate).

We’ve basically been treating it like a rainy day, keeping him at household temperature (which is around 75 degrees). I set up a basking spot with a mega ray, but I fear he might try and hibernate because it’s pretty dark inside the house right now (and is September). He dumped a huge amount of urate today, about the amount in a large tube of toothpaste, and roughly the same consistency.

Here are the fears:

1) If we put him outside, the bad air agitates his lungs, but he doesn’t go into hibernation with a piece of styrofoam in his gut

2) If we keep him inside, he’s safe from the ashy air, but he might go into hibernation with the piece of styrofoam in his gut

Would he be better off back outside? He doesn’t have a burrow, but he does have two good size dog houses. Any help would be appreciated.

Get a large stock tank, or something similar, and set him up with the correct lighting and heat indoors. You can go all winter this way, or you can ease him into hibernation this way.

Due to the urates and the styrofoam, I would soak daily until the foam passes, and also to re-dyrate him, and keep him hydrated in the indoor enclosure with the heat lamp. Also, add some spineless opuntia to the diet, if you can get him to eat it. This can be found in any Mexican grocery store like Vallarta or Tres Sierras. Sometimes Asian grocery stores will have it too. The opuntia pads are high in fiber, high in moisture content, and also lube the GI tract to help push the loan through.

Check this out for more info:

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[Pastel Tortie]

The last sulcata we heard about that ate a large piece of styrofoam took 11 days to pass it. Hopefully your tortoise won't take quite that long. ?

 

[daveyjones1972]

Thanks so much for your help Tom! I’m not sure if I mentioned this in the original post but he’s a Mojave’s desert tortoise. The stock tank is a great idea, but we live in a small bungalow and there’s not much room, so it’s going to be tricky. In your opinion, what is the smallest size stock tank an adult male Mojave’s desert tortoise could stay in for a while and still be able to have a heat/cool gradient that’s within reason? I think size shape wise oval would be better than round if we had to go this route. Also, oval might have a better chance of fitting, but still even that may not even be feasible.

With the fire less than a mile away and the possibility that we may end up having to a safer area, what would you think we should I do if we end up in a hotel room with him inside a Rubbermaid container? I’m very worried about that, especially since he ate that styrofoam and we don’t have a whole lot of options available to us right now. Any ideas would be very much appreciated.

Lastly, so you have any idea what might have caused such a large urate dump? He did this once before during the early part of summer.

Thanks so much for your time,

Davey Jones