my tort is an idiot

[rorostortoise]

i love my baby boy so much i would do anything for him but hes such a °°°°°°° idiot sometimes. he refuses to not °°°° in his water so i have to replace it 4 times a day between the mulch he kicks in it and his °°°°. anyone else? i have no clue why he does this as opposed to pooping anywhere else

 

[ShellingtonTheFirst]

I guess sometimes they just don’t? Mine doesn’t poop in his water either. He pees and poos all over his enclosure though. 😒

 

[Tim Carlisle]

lol. Mine goes wherever. Would be nice to have a centralized spot to collect it all.

 

[Krista S]

i love my baby boy so much i would do anything for him but hes such a °°°°°°° idiot sometimes. he refuses to not °°°° in his water so i have to replace it 4 times a day between the mulch he kicks in it and his °°°°. anyone else? i have no clue why he does this as opposed to pooping anywhere else

You tortoise isn’t an idiot. He’s doing what tortoises do. Like any pet, they do require care and regular maintenance to their enclosures. Water stimulates tortoises to go to the bathroom. Maybe try giving your tortoise a warm soak once per day and he will likely go to the bathroom there instead.

 

[rorostortoise]

You tortoise isn’t an idiot. He’s doing what tortoises do. Like any pet, they do require care and regular maintenance to their enclosures. Water stimulates tortoises to go to the bathroom. Maybe try giving your tortoise a warm soak once per day and he will likely go to the bathroom there instead.

thanks for the tip ill try soaking him more often! how do i dispose of the water as i an on septic not sewer

 

[Tom]

thanks for the tip ill try soaking him more often! how do i dispose of the water as i an on septic not sewer

What species and size tortoise are we talking about?

Daily soaks are not harmful for any tortoise and will certainly reduce the mess.

I dump the poopy water into my raised garden beds. Fertilizer and water all-in-one! My mother finds it incredible that I use their pooopy water to grow and fertilize the plants that I feed to them. "Self contained system" as she puts it.

I have one species that fouls their food bowls in this way. It seems like nearly every time I check one of them has pooped and/or peed in the food bowl. On one hand, its a pain to have to clean it multiple time each day. On the other hand, I'm really glad to be able to remove that waste from the enclosure, and not have to replace the expensive substrate as often. If all that waste wasn't in that water bowl, it would be all over the enclosure. Be glad that he's made that his toilet, instead of leaving that mess all over the enclosure.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

In addition to the advice shared above, I'd like to add that I found placing rocks around the water dish significantly reduces the mess tracked through it. I always put stones around the water dishes both indoors and outdoors. Even now, my 11 year old leopard has a huge terra cotta saucer as his outdoor water dish and it's surrounded by large boulders. They are sunken into the ground a bit and in doing so, I find they work like a floor mat, cleaning off his feet just a bit before he tracks through the dish.