Nature's Spray Bottle

[kbaker]

Some keepers have been looking at yearly/seasonal cycles in wild tortoises. I don't agree with some of the conclusions. Has anyone looked at the daily cycle of a tortoise? Most of the daily temps I've seen in books have a fair range from daily lows to daily highs.

One thing I noticed (or should I say missing right now), is every morning when I would go out to the tortoise pen, the grass would be wet with dew. The tortoises would be in the grass with dew, too. Now with Sulcatas, this may or may not happen naturally where they come from, but then again they are different than most other tortoises as they burrow.

From watching those nature shows on TV, some areas get a daily rain everyday for a good part of the year.

Do you thing Nature is spraying her tortoises daily??? I do.


















Small Print:This is just what I was thinking about this morning (instead of working). This is not an answer to your prays.

 

[mike1011]

Hi, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the humid hides are working for baby torts so well because there is some sort of moisture absorbtion going on either with the skin or shell surface. Most baby torts in the wild do not have access to drinking water at their leisure. If the humid hides (in captivity and in the wild) only prevented dehydration (through asperation) the torts in wild would still not have ample liquid to stay hydrated. Only my uneducated guess, but I believe they absorb moisture in humid hides and during precipitation. This is why I also believe the daily soaks only stress the torts out, misting with a spray bottle is much more useful. Make sense to anyone or am I just sniffing to much tort poop? As I reread this I'm thinking maybe the absorbtion is actually taking place in the respiratory system during breathing?

 

[moswen]

well, i could see what you mean (mike) by picking the torts up and placing them in a cointainer with water might be stressful, but i can tell you for sure, my torts aren't stressed once they are in their containers. every single one of them stretches out arms and legs, head out and high as it needs to be, soaking up the rays in a warm bath. they all love it. i sit in their room with them until they start to scratch at their tubs (when i am at leisure to do so, some days i don't have the time), then i take them out. sometimes it takes a long time for every one of them to get out. my torts don't use their humid hides though. i've gone through several different makes and models, but none have been found suitable for any of them.

i agree with you kbaker, i believe the wet morning dew is nature's way of providing water for every tortoise, and animal, that needs it. sometimes deer lick the dew off the grass around my parent's house too.

the problem with spraying instead of soaking (mike) in my opinion, is that in my enclosures, the water evaporates in a few short minutes. dew sits on the grass for at least an hour or more. more, in the shaded areas and underneath the first tallest grass sprouts. this doesn't give enough time for the tortoises' skin to open up and soak up enough water for the whole day. you'd have to stand by your tortoise and hand spray the tort till it drips (making sure the water never fully evaporates so the tortoise's skin doesn't close up again) every few minutes for at least 30-45 minutes in order to give it the same amount of water as it would have in the wild. not to mention the tort is probably eating the grass with dew on it as well, so you'd have to provide it with a way to eat wet grass while you're spraying it.

**this is just my HUMBLE opinion though!**

 

[mike1011]

I think what you described with the water evaporating quickly somes up the problem with captive torts. They need a place to hide that is humid enough to either prevent dehrydrating or absorb some moisture, depending on how the humid hide works.

 

[Tom]

Speculation on what happens and how its done in the wild is just that, speculation. Fun in some ways, and very interesting, but the fact is NO ONE knows what babies do in the wild.

That leaves me with figuring out what works in captivity for me, in my area, with my chosen species. I have decades of failure to tell you what does NOT work and a little over 7 months of success to tell you what DOES work.

 

[Jermosh]

There is dew even in the harshest deserts, especially in grasslands. Also DTs at least will make holes to hold water and make a mud pit, this is one of the reasons why they cannot be transplanted since they do not know these spots. In fact my sullies do that with my citrus trees and emu bush.