New - Adopted 2 Desert Tortoises

[AndreaB]

Hello to all!
I'm so pleased to have discovered this forum.

My sister and I are near the ocean and we were able to adopt 2 male Desert Tortoises (Bear & Cloud) that had lived by the ocean their whole lives. They are 11 years old. We've had them about a month.

We enclosed an area for them in the yard and have closed off views of the neighbors yard and checked it for areas where they could turn themselves over. They have grasses to munch on, Hybiscus, and dicondra. They love cuttlebone.

They were raised on frozen veggies (peas, beans, corn, carrots), kale, romaine, etc. We're slowly attempting to ween them off frozen to fresh foods as we've read that the frozen mixture they eat robs them of calcium. We think they've had a lot of people contact as they like to sniff and walk over your feet and sit in your lap. I guess we have 'lap tortoises'.

We need help please:
We love our new babies, but are having a tough time getting some sort of routine in place. We keep them in at night in tubs, as the enclosure is not fenced in along the top. In the mornings we need to put them out before we go to work (we are working on obtaining a house for them this weekend w/warming lights), but it is too cold to put them out early so I've been missing work to put them out in the sun and feed them after they've warmed up. I've thought about changing my work schedule to leave early and come home early afternoon.

What kind of schedules do any of you use? If we can't work out a schedule we'll have to return our beloved babies. We were so clueless to the amount of work that was involved in having our boys. We are struggling just to get them outside and fed after they've warmed up. Do they have to be fed in the early morning or would the afternoon be fine? I don't want them to go hungry.

Any help you can provide would be welcome.

Thank you so much.

AndreaB

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Andrea:

to the forum!

Why can't you just place them outside in the a.m. in some sort of shelter...an upside down cardboard box with a doorway cut into it, or some such, and place their plate of food at that time too. Then when it warms up they'll come out and eat.

If you're worried its too cold, string an extension cord to the pen with a clamp light fixture and a heat bulb.

Give us a bit more information about your tortoise set-up and weather, please

Yvonne

 

[Jacqui]

Welcome! Lucky you two getting to have these two! I agree, you should be able to put them out in the am just fine like Yvonne suggested.

 

[AndreaB]

I'm surprised that they can just go out in the early morning. We thought they could only be out in warm weather. We tend to have humidity here and are guarding against any respiratory problems. Your ideas are so simple. That's great! I think we are making it harder than it has to be.

We are 3 blocks from ocean and get a lot of low clouds, but it tends to burn off later in morning. Maybe they aren't a fragile as we thought.

Enclosure is surrounded by house on 2 sides, new low concrete block wall 18" - 20" high, and 1 side grape steak fencing w/4"-5" high strips of plastic lawn edging screwed into bottom edge of fence in double, overlapping layers (adding 8"-10" inches of surface that they cannot get any traction on.) Block wall has a smooth stucco surface spread over it.

Japanese Maple tree shades half the area. We made a curving low burm (hill) for them to climb up and down. It is planted with native grasses, nasturtium, etc. There are 2 Cecil Bruner Rosebushes.

What other details are wanted?

Thanks again for your help.

AndreaB

 

[Yvonne G]

I LOVE the Cecile Brunner climbing rose. I have it over the fence on the outside of my property. My only regret is that it only blooms for a short while in the spring.

What is the night time temperature? It sounds like your pen is good and safe. The plantings are fine. And yes, you're correct, they are NOT as sturdy as we would like for them to be. However, yours have been raised in your climate, so they should be acclimated to the humidity. If you think its too cold outside first thing in the a.m. for them to be outside, just string a light for them, like I mentioned above. They'll stay in their box/hiding place, under the light, until they're ready to come outside and eat.

Good luck with them,

Yvonne

Oh, and: PICTURES, PICTURES!!! WE LOVE PICTURES!

 

[Crazy1]

Hi Andrea you've gotten great info so far so I will just Welcome you to the forum.

 

[Isa]

Welcome to the forum Andrea

 

[AndreaB]

We've been to the pet store and picked up a wooden dog house that we need to build. (Hopefully, they will like it.) We plan to put a plastic flap (with the slits in the plastic for ventilation and easy access) over the doorway. The regular plastic igloo dog houses were too large. It will give us something to put together this weekend.

The Tortoise expert at the reptile store suggested we buy straw to place on the floor of the dog house, thereby eliminating a need for a lamp or heating unit as they like to bury themselves in the straw. He told us how to make caring for them easier and less time consuming. We've made it too hard for ourselves.

Temperatures here are 65 (AM) - 80-90 (PM) degrees lately. Last week it was 104 degrees, which is unusual for this area (San Diego, CA) unless we are having a Santa Ana.

In winter we can go as low as 30 degrees, but by then tortoises will be snuggled in a nice hibernation box in a closet or basement area.

Thank you again for all the replies. We have pictures of the Tortoises, and will to post them later with some yard pictures.

AndreaB

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Hi Andrea...welcome to the forum. You have acquired my favorite species and I am going to contradict what the "Tortoise expert" told you about substrate. They do love to burrow but hay will not keep them warm. They are 'cold blooded' creatures and as such they cannot create the internal temp of about 85 needed to metabolize their food. If they can't get warm they will stop eating and then you are in deep dodo. Can't you run an extension cord to a clamp light fixture? Then you can just put a black lightbulb in it and they would stay warm that way. Then when they are ready they can get up on their own.
You can watch Craigs list for a used dogloo or as Yvonne suggested just a cardboard box would do. You can use cinderblock to make a house. If you do it in a corner that's less block you need. You have several choices here and not one of them include giving up the tortoises. Any old funky house will do...please keep us posted...

 

[AndreaB]

Hi Andrea...welcome to the forum. You have acquired my favorite species and I am going to contradict what the "Tortoise expert" told you about substrate. They do love to burrow but hay will not keep them warm. They are 'cold blooded' creatures and as such they cannot create the internal temp of about 85 needed to metabolize their food. If they can't get warm they will stop eating and then you are in deep dodo. Can't you run an extension cord to a clamp light fixture? Then you can just put a black lightbulb in it and they would stay warm that way. Then when they are ready they can get up on their own.
You can watch Craigs list for a used dogloo or as Yvonne suggested just a cardboard box would do. You can use cinderblock to make a house. If you do it in a corner that's less block you need. You have several choices here and not one of them include giving up the tortoises. Any old funky house will do...please keep us posted...

Good answer. A cinder block house would have been a good idea. They do have a cement block den with a wood roof to rest inside of and get out of the heat, but it's ceiling is low and not high enough for a clamped lamp. That's why we bought the dog house.

The 4 sides of the wood dog house and floor have been put together. The 2 pieces of the roof are locked in place, but have not been attached for ease of cleaning and ease of reaching Tortoises. We could add a support beam to attach the clamping lamp to.

The bottom of the dog house is open wood slats, which wasn't mentioned on the dog house box. Slats could be dangerous for legs. Don't want anyone getting stuck in the house so we are considering adding a removable piece of vinyl to the bottom unless there is a better idea. (Don't want to add anything toxic to their house.)

We'll look at the construction of the roof tomorrow and see how we can add the extension cord with a black light.

It was cooler today and the boys didn't eat as well as I'd like. I'll make sure they are warm enough tomorrow and see if their appetite improves. Thank you again for your help.

AndreaB

 

[Madortoise]

Welcome, Andrea. Feel free to post pictures of your torts. We love pix!