Is there something wrong with my Russian Tortoise?

Kawright6996

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Apr 16, 2019
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Indianapolis
Good morning! Two days ago I got two Russian tortoises from a work friend. One seems fine, (very active, eating, pooping), while the other tortoise is not. She has an overgrown beak, will not eat or hardly move, she will only take a couple of steps then drop to the ground and wont move and lay her head on the ground. She's approx. 4½" but she is VERY light compared to the first tortoise. I soaked them both in warm water yesterday, the active tortoise pooped but the second one did not. I am really worried about her! While I have done weeks of research on Russian tortoises, I am a fresh tortoise owner and I need input from the experts. I currently have a 40 gallon breeder tank, 100 watt uva baking light, a tube uva/uvb light, and a red 100w night bulb. This was intended for only one tortoise, but I rescued two from a work friend who's family didn't want them anymore. I plan on getting something bigger in the near future for both of these guys but I need suggestions and help please! I uploaded some pictures of the enclosure and the sickly tortoise

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RosemaryDW

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Welcome to the forum!

I’m not a health expert so can only give you a few tips.

Ninety isn’t warm enough, they need to have at least ninety-five degrees under the basking spot to get warm enough to digest their food, one hundred degrees is better. Can you lower your heat source a bit? Take a look at our care sheet for Russians: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/russian-tortoise-care-sheet.80698/.

Someone is going to shortly, and correctly, tell you to separate those tortoises asap. One of those tortoises is bullying the other and it is surely the sick one that is getting the bad end of it. In the interim can you at least put a second hide in there. In their new spaces they’ll each need a minimum space of four by eight feet. Tortoise bullying is not obvious to humans but I assure you it’s been going on for some time if they were in a shared space.

The red light is not good for tortoises, it keeps them awake. If you need night heat get a ceremic heat emitter (CHE) and use that. If your house is not dropping past sixty at night you can stop the red light for a few days until the CHE arrives. If your house doesn’t get below sixty five at night you don’t need anything.

An overgrown beak makes it hard for tortoises to eat so you need to trim it. The beak is made out of the same stuff as our fingernails; you can trim it one little snip at a time with nail clippers. It doesn’t hurt the tortoise. I don’t think yours looks too bad, it won’t need much.

It looks to me like you’ve got too much powdered supplement on the food; that can throw them off. Try just the lightest sprinkle a few days a week. You can try grating a bit of cucumber onto the other food, most tortoises like cucumber enough to tempt them.

I’m pretty sure you need more serious intervention for your sick one in addition to a new enclosure. Hopefully you will hear from a medical “expert” soon. If you don’t, make a new post in the tortoise health thread.
 

Kawright6996

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Apr 16, 2019
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Indianapolis
Thank you for the reply! I plan on getting another enclosure asap so I can separate them until I can build something bigger for each one. I'm headed to the pet store to get a CHE now! I was indecisive on which bulb to get at first, and the pet clerk steered me in the wrong way and I got the red bulb
 

Yvonne G

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There might be something else going on, but the first thing that sprang to my mind was the pair thing. Tortoises, especially Russian tortoises, don't do well in pairs. And you have them in a pretty small enclosure. The one that doesn't do much could be trying to remain inconspicuous so as the more dominant tortoise doesn't see her and pick on her. Just get a large plastic tub and set her up by herself and see if that helps the situation.
 

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