Eckgirl88
New Member
Artie is lethargic and his shell is softer than it should be. His enclosure is a large tote with a ceramic heat bulb, a MVB at 75w (we added today from the one that is like spiral and white), and also an incandescent bulb at 65watts. His cool side is 80 and the warm side fluctuates based on which lights are on but 84-100 and humidity is 84. Coco for substrate. He’s been on a diet of hibiscus leaves, succulents, and we add in clovers and mustard greens or kale, or spinach from the store, but grow the different succulents and hibiscus. Today I bought some spider plants, a prayer plant, bromeliad, and a geranium to add to our Artie buffet. He has always been such an active and curious tortoise who comes out of his humid hide as soon as you open his enclosure and start making noise. He has always chomped down his food like an eager beaver. He usually poops or pees on my daughter if she rubs his belly or during soaks and his shell was hard and smooth without any pyramiding.
He recently started to shed, or that’s what we thought but now I’m questioning everything. We check the tortoise table before giving any new foods. He gets at least three soaks a week, but we were doing it daily, but my daughter has slacked a little bit. I didn’t think it was enough to do damage. He is fed daily and has a terra cotta dish of water at all times as well as moist substrate and daily (sometimes multiple times a day) sprays. I thought the shedding was a sign he was growing and we were doing good. This week he has been inactive. Today I’d describe it as lethargic. I came home and he had his head hanging and took more than one nudge to open his eyes. We researched and did a baby food soak with carrots, spinach, kale, and pear to along with two water soaks and the second one (to rinse) had a sprinkle of calcium mixed in to try to get him to absorb that too. I’m linking a video from my daughter’s phone of last year and the rest of the media is all of about 30 minutes ago. Is it too late for him? I don’t know what happened to cause such a drastic change. He has relocated himself in his habitat about 3 times since the new bulb was switched out. Is that a good sign? Is there anything else we can do? Everyone loves him so much and we are building the closed chamber enclosure Mark gave the specs for. My FIL is cutting the PVC out atm. Videos and pictures of Artie
He recently started to shed, or that’s what we thought but now I’m questioning everything. We check the tortoise table before giving any new foods. He gets at least three soaks a week, but we were doing it daily, but my daughter has slacked a little bit. I didn’t think it was enough to do damage. He is fed daily and has a terra cotta dish of water at all times as well as moist substrate and daily (sometimes multiple times a day) sprays. I thought the shedding was a sign he was growing and we were doing good. This week he has been inactive. Today I’d describe it as lethargic. I came home and he had his head hanging and took more than one nudge to open his eyes. We researched and did a baby food soak with carrots, spinach, kale, and pear to along with two water soaks and the second one (to rinse) had a sprinkle of calcium mixed in to try to get him to absorb that too. I’m linking a video from my daughter’s phone of last year and the rest of the media is all of about 30 minutes ago. Is it too late for him? I don’t know what happened to cause such a drastic change. He has relocated himself in his habitat about 3 times since the new bulb was switched out. Is that a good sign? Is there anything else we can do? Everyone loves him so much and we are building the closed chamber enclosure Mark gave the specs for. My FIL is cutting the PVC out atm. Videos and pictures of Artie
