lettuce alone?

[booboo24]

Hi, my desert tortoise lives free roaming in my back yard for 58 years and lived primarily on lettuce. Occasionally, green beans, hawaiian papaya and watermelon.
She had a previous owner for 10 years before i got her...so she is pretty old. Seems to work for her.

Recently she seems to have been attacked by something. Found her upside down, limbs flailing, a pile of poop ( not hers) in the middle of her tummy. i flipped her
back over and she headed for the bushes. I have no idea why she was where she was( middle of the patio) and why she was in such a state. She seems to be okay but afraid.
what kind of animal would do that to her? Any ideas?
sooz

 

[Tom]

Hi, my desert tortoise lives free roaming in my back yard for 58 years and lived primarily on lettuce. Occasionally, green beans, hawaiian papaya and watermelon.
She had a previous owner for 10 years before i got her...so she is pretty old. Seems to work for her.

Recently she seems to have been attacked by something. Found her upside down, limbs flailing, a pile of poop ( not hers) in the middle of her tummy. i flipped her
back over and she headed for the bushes. I have no idea why she was where she was( middle of the patio) and why she was in such a state. She seems to be okay but afraid.
what kind of animal would do that to her? Any ideas?
sooz

When they flip over, for whatever reason, they tend to completely empty their bowels. They are emptying their bowels prematurely, so the feces will often be loose and not look like their normal turds.

Are there any marks on the shell? Like scratch marks from teeth? Dogs are the usual culprits, but coyotes, raccoons, possums and bob cats are possible too. To prevent this, and to help your tortoise ease into winter brumation and out of brumation in the spring, I recommend an insulated temperature controlled box. Your tortoise can sleep in this every night and be protected from the local predators. You can always keep the temperature where is needs to be in fall or spring when the weather isn't cooperating. I show how to do this and explain many more aspects of their care here:

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

Desert tortoises should never be fed fruit. It wreaks havoc on their gut flora and fauna. They should be fed a wide variety of leaves, weeds, flowers and spineless opuntia pads are a great natural addition too.

Here is all the current care info to catch you up to speed:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[RandyTortoise]

Hi, my desert tortoise lives free roaming in my back yard for 58 years and lived primarily on lettuce. Occasionally, green beans, hawaiian papaya and watermelon.
She had a previous owner for 10 years before i got her...so she is pretty old. Seems to work for her.

Recently she seems to have been attacked by something. Found her upside down, limbs flailing, a pile of poop ( not hers) in the middle of her tummy. i flipped her
back over and she headed for the bushes. I have no idea why she was where she was( middle of the patio) and why she was in such a state. She seems to be okay but afraid.
what kind of animal would do that to her? Any ideas?
sooz

I agree with Tom, some animal flipped it over. It doesn’t happen for no reason.

Sometimes, children hate to eat veggies and will refuse to eat anything except French fries and chicken nuggets. This happened to a friend of mine. Unfortunately my friend is kind of an idiot and to avoid his kid crying and throwing tantrums, he gave the kid what he wanted to eat only. Fast forward to high school and the kid was fat and kind of stupid. Hate to say, but true. Now he is in his 20s and has early diabetes. I always thought it was child abuse to let a kid eat only two or three things growing up.

This is your tortoise. Yeah, lettuce made it grow and it loves lettuce. But you hav no idea what you have done to that tortoise physically. Stop that now. Spend a few minutes looking into a healthy diet for him and change immediately. Tom gave you a link. I am more concerned about you raiding a tortoise for many years on lettuce than I am about him being flipped over.

 

[booboo24]

When they flip over, for whatever reason, they tend to completely empty their bowels. They are emptying their bowels prematurely, so the feces will often be loose and not look like their normal turds.

Are there any marks on the shell? Like scratch marks from teeth? Dogs are the usual culprits, but coyotes, raccoons, possums and bob cats are possible too. To prevent this, and to help your tortoise ease into winter brumation and out of brumation in the spring, I recommend an insulated temperature controlled box. Your tortoise can sleep in this every night and be protected from the local predators. You can always keep the temperature where is needs to be in fall or spring when the weather isn't cooperating. I show how to do this and explain many more aspects of their care here:

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

Desert tortoises should never be fed fruit. It wreaks havoc on their gut flora and fauna. They should be fed a wide variety of leaves, weeds, flowers and spineless opuntia pads are a great natural addition too.

Here is all the current care info to catch you up to speed:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

thank you for all the information...i guess i am lucky that she has survived this long without me
knowing anything. i have never found her flipped over before and how do they do that when
there is nothing around them? nice to be learning things at this late stage. Do tortoises get
any form of dementia? she seems not to be herself...for the last 5 years she pretty much had
a routine and never wandered around the yard much...now i have to go looking for her and
find her digging new burrows. When she was younger she wandered all over the yard then
stayed put for about 5 and is wandering/exploring again.

 

[Tom]

thank you for all the information...i guess i am lucky that she has survived this long without me
knowing anything. i have never found her flipped over before and how do they do that when
there is nothing around them? nice to be learning things at this late stage. Do tortoises get
any form of dementia? she seems not to be herself...for the last 5 years she pretty much had
a routine and never wandered around the yard much...now i have to go looking for her and
find her digging new burrows. When she was younger she wandered all over the yard then
stayed put for about 5 and is wandering/exploring again.

I have 60+ tortoises living outside at any given time. My staff and I walk around and do a head count every 20-30 minutes. We occasionally find one on its back. Mine live in groups, so the presumption is that they are fighting and flipping each other, but I don't ever see them fighting, so I really don't know how they are ending up on their backs. I'm overdo for some surveillance cameras. In your case, if it was out in the middle of the yard with no vegetation or walls anywhere near it, then it seems like an animal flipping it would be the most logical assumption.

About the dementia: No, I've never heard of a diagnosed case of dementia, but here is what I typically see: Most people love their tortoise and have good intentions, but they don't know how to feed it right and take good care of it. They figure that if it is still alive after all these years, then they must be doing something right, and almost all of the advice found by people who look for care advice, is all wrong. The problem is that it takes tortoises a very long time to die when their needs aren't being met. Most people don't feed, hydrate, brumate, or house them correctly. Most of them will survive for a long while in less than optimal conditions, but they tend to gradually decline over time. This is not black and white. There are millions of variables to consider like the weather, climate, what weeds pop up, annual rainfall, annual temperatures, additional food offered, brumation practices, etc... It's great that your tortoise has survived all this time, but there is no time like the present to improve things and get the tortoise thriving for a few more decades. We'd be glad to help you with that.

 

[Yvonne G]

I wonder if there's any flora growing in the yard. The tortoise may be eating weeds and plants without you knowing. . . in which case, the lettuce and other stuff you gave him would more or less be construed as treats, not the main diet.

 

[booboo24]

I have 60+ tortoises living outside at any given time. My staff and I walk around and do a head count every 20-30 minutes. We occasionally find one on its back. Mine live in groups, so the presumption is that they are fighting and flipping each other, but I don't ever see them fighting, so I really don't know how they are ending up on their backs. I'm overdo for some surveillance cameras. In your case, if it was out in the middle of the yard with no vegetation or walls anywhere near it, then it seems like an animal flipping it would be the most logical assumption.

About the dementia: No, I've never heard of a diagnosed case of dementia, but here is what I typically see: Most people love their tortoise and have good intentions, but they don't know how to feed it right and take good care of it. They figure that if it is still alive after all these years, then they must be doing something right, and almost all of the advice found by people who look for care advice, is all wrong. The problem is that it takes tortoises a very long time to die when their needs aren't being met. Most people don't feed, hydrate, brumate, or house them correctly. Most of them will survive for a long while in less than optimal conditions, but they tend to gradually decline over time. This is not black and white. There are millions of variables to consider like the weather, climate, what weeds pop up, annual rainfall, annual temperatures, additional food offered, brumation practices, etc... It's great that your tortoise has survived all this time, but there is no time like the present to improve things and get the tortoise thriving for a few more decades. We'd be glad to help you with that.

thanks..i am 85 and do not want to see it go before me...haha....will take all the advice offered in the
initial text on new members to this site...better late than never. thanks, i am so glad to have found
this site.

a while back near her regular part of the yard i found the innards of some animal..no bones , no feathers
and so i do not know what kind of animal was attacked. The same day the tortoise, we call her grandma,
left her regular spot and dug her self in far away in another part of the yard. She stayed there for
a week and then went back to her regular spot. I wonder if what ever took place was disturbing
enough for her to hightail it somewhere far to hide.. I live near a creek and we have raccoons
that frequent the neighborhood. They also live in the sewers here...

 

[booboo24]

thanks..i am 85 and do not want to see it go before me...haha....will take all the advice offered in the
initial text on new members to this site...better late than never. thanks, i am so glad to have found
this site.

a while back near her regular part of the yard i found the innards of some animal..no bones , no feathers
and so i do not know what kind of animal was attacked. The same day the tortoise, we call her grandma,
left her regular spot and dug her self in far away in another part of the yard. She stayed there for
a week and then went back to her regular spot. I wonder if what ever took place was disturbing
enough for her to hightail it somewhere far to hide.. I live near a creek and we have raccoons
that frequent the neighborhood. They also live in the sewers here...

Also, I have to stay with her until she finishes eating because the squirrels come steal her food.