Hydration worries

[Moozillion]

I just got a brand new Hermann's tort (my first tort, ever) yesterday. She's 4.5 inches long, so she's not an adult but she's not a fragile hatchling either. When I unboxed her, I gave her a nice warm soak for 20 minutes: she passed some urates and had a nice big poop but did't drink.

In the day and a half since I've had her, she's eating really well but I still haven't seen her drink. When she's not eating she stays completely buried in her substrate which doesn't worry me: I know that it's normal for new torts to hide because they're scared in their new surroundings. I know she'll stay out more once she calms down.

When I got home from work tonight, she had not only eaten all her greens but she had tracked dirt and sphagnum moss all through her food dish. But her water dish didn't have a speck of dirt in it, so I doubt she got in it. Her (indoor) enclosure is pretty humid: the cool end is 84% (I had NO IDEA that organic potting soil held moisture so well!. I keep fluffing it up and turning it over to help it dry out, and I know it will, eventually). The warm end is 84% in the mornings but drops to 55% after a day of the heat lamps being on.

Should I dig her out and soak her when I get home in the evenings? Is she getting enough hydration between the humid environment and the water that I rinse her greens with before I give them to her?

 

[wellington]

You should soak every other day to every third day. If you don't think it's ever getting into the water dish himself, I think I would soak every other day. Post a pic of the enclosure. Maybe it needs tweaking.

 

[Tim/Robin]

A Hermanns tortoise that size won't drink very often. I would soak her once a week for a month then go to about once a month. They get most of their required water from the food they eat. Now hatchlings, that is a different story!!!

 

[Baoh]

In nature, your Hermann's would successfully maintain its hydration state primarily through moisture in the soil and via its consumption of vegetable matter, drinking water when occasionally available from infrequent rainfall. While I do see a fraction of animals that manage to live near streams or other small bodies of water, the bulk are a great many miles from a source they could drink from and they do well. You can soak it if you like, but it should also do well with your current setup as you have described it. If you add some earthworms, you will not need to turn the soil as much or at all. Let the top layer dry out and make sure that which is beneath retains significant moisture. Water one end occasionally as you see fit.

If the edge of her water dish is adequately low, she will drink from it when she feels the need to do so and would normally not require intervention.

 

[Moozillion]

The enclosure is 3' x 4' and 18" tall. There's 4 inches of organic potting soil for substrate and 3 plants: two spider plants and a swedish ivy. She has 2 terracotta pot hides but one is blocked from view in this photo by the fixture. I have a 24" ReptiSun 5.0 and an "aquarium light" in a 2 bulb fixture. The basking lamp at the far end is a 60 watt GE Reveal indoor flood light and the other dome fixture is a 40 watt GE Reveal incandescent bulb. The warm end gets up to 80 degrees with the basking spot around 92, the cool end varies between 68 and 72. Humidity, as I said in my earlier post, is 84% in the cool end and varies between 84% in the morning and 55% in the evening in the warm end. Her lights had already cycled off for the night, I just turned on the middle incandescent bulb to take the picture. She has buried herself in the far left corner, under the basking spot, which is where she stays when she's not eating. Her water dish is the larger dish to the right- my temp gun reads 76- I wonder if that's too cool? Maybe the dish is too big? I'm thinking of getting a smaller water dish and putting it closer to one of her warming lights.

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Thanks Tim/Robin and Baoh!

 

[Baoh]

Looks just fine. As long as she could drink, if she so chose, without climbing into the water dish, I would not change your setup.

It gets rather cool at night in the mountains they often frequent. The 70s pose no problem. As long as you have your hot spot of 92, I would let the gradient work itself out.

 

[Moozillion]

Actually, now that you mention it, I don't think she could drink without getting into the dish- that lip is pretty thick. I think I may change her water dish to a smaller plastic one that I can sink into the substrate a little better.

 

[Baoh]

Yeah, I like to provide it with either a very low edge or sunken into a substrate depression. Or something ramped. Several things can work.

 

[mainey34]

Something I notice that I have learned from Tom. The clamps on your lights. They will fail. You have to find another way to place them like the florecent one that you have in the middle of the enclosure.

 

[Moozillion]

Yeah, I don't really trust those light clamps. You can't see in the photo, but the basking light at the end is tied with twine to a screw in the post to help keep it up. I'm going to change that this weekend and make other changes too. Thanks fr the reminder.