Alith7
Member
- Joined
- May 24, 2016
- Messages
- 37
My husband and I rescued a Russian tortoise a few months ago that showed up on a local buy/sell/trade site. The owner had purchased her for her son at least 6 months prior. The son had not been doing anything with her, and the lady was sick of taking care of her. I do think she really was trying to take care of her as best as she was able. But she really had no clue what she was doing. She was soaked at least twice a week, but we're pretty sure she was fed nothing but grocery store lettuce. Her house was a 20 gallon reptile tank with reptile felt, and a half log. Poor thing!
My husband has been researching and wanting a tortoise for over 10 years, we just never found the "right" one at the "right" time until now.
The first thing we did was take her to the vet to get checked out. She got her nails trimmed, and a good once over. Although the vet did comment that the growth lines between her scutes was an odd slight greenish color. The only thing he saw was that her eyes were a bit puffy and he thought she might have some conjunctivitis, so we had to give her some antibiotic drops for two weeks and that cleared up fine. As far as age, he seemed to think she was full grown, and according to the previous owners she was "at least 5 years".
We live in Wisconsin, so our winter food options are limited, but we immediately altered her diet. currently, she is getting a mix of Radicchio, Green Leaf, Read Leaf, Escarole and Endive. I buy the full heads and shred a few days worth at a time. We are almost into full summer, and have been adding dandelion greens and the occasional flower. as soon as the mulberry trees, rose bushes and hibiscus open their leaves, we'll be adding some of those. And some hibiscus flowers and rose petals when we have those. We do not fertilize or spray our plants or yard, so everything should be about as safe as it can get. I generally have a brown thumb, but I am going to try my hand at growing some of my own lettuces and other plants this summer.
After reading a number of sites having concern about calcium powders and sprays, we decided to go with the cuttle bone in the tank option.
We also recently finished her new tortoise table. It is about 3' x 6' with a mix of about 3" of expanded coconut fiber and cypress mulch. She has a heat bulb and UVB bulb during the day, and ceramic heat bulb at night. We do the night one because the previous owners used a red reptile bulb at night and she seemed to want the warm at night. She got weird when we tried to take it away, but she has started sleeping under the day bulb at night where it cools off.
We soak her about every other day. We fill the tub with shallow amount of luke warm water, and let her wander around in there until she starts scrabbling at the sides to get out. Usually about 15 minutes or so.
So that's the long of the history. I have some other weird behavior questions, but I'll ask them later. Right now, my main concern is this weird growth between her scutes. She has thick creamy white growth bands, which, from what I can find, seem to be from rapid growth. But there are these weird "dents" in them. I will post pictures as soon as I get home tonight. She eats anything and everything we put in front of her, but I have noticed that she'll eat about half of what we give her in the morning, and then come back to it around lunch and finish it off. I'm not sure if we are over feeding her, and haven't really had luck finding how much you should feed.
Her skin is also peeling constantly. it doesn't seem like it bothers her, the skin looks fine underneath and there is no bad smell, but I'm not sure if we should be worried about this or not.
If this is all just part of her getting over the malnutrition from before, I didn't want to bother the vet. he does seem to know his stuff, I guess he raises Red Foots. But he didn't seem to know a whole lot about the Russian specific differences. For example, he kept telling us to feed her lots of fruit. We did not. she has not had any. But other than the breed specific differences, he did seem to know a fair amount about general tortoise stuff.
The short of it:
My husband has been researching and wanting a tortoise for over 10 years, we just never found the "right" one at the "right" time until now.
The first thing we did was take her to the vet to get checked out. She got her nails trimmed, and a good once over. Although the vet did comment that the growth lines between her scutes was an odd slight greenish color. The only thing he saw was that her eyes were a bit puffy and he thought she might have some conjunctivitis, so we had to give her some antibiotic drops for two weeks and that cleared up fine. As far as age, he seemed to think she was full grown, and according to the previous owners she was "at least 5 years".
We live in Wisconsin, so our winter food options are limited, but we immediately altered her diet. currently, she is getting a mix of Radicchio, Green Leaf, Read Leaf, Escarole and Endive. I buy the full heads and shred a few days worth at a time. We are almost into full summer, and have been adding dandelion greens and the occasional flower. as soon as the mulberry trees, rose bushes and hibiscus open their leaves, we'll be adding some of those. And some hibiscus flowers and rose petals when we have those. We do not fertilize or spray our plants or yard, so everything should be about as safe as it can get. I generally have a brown thumb, but I am going to try my hand at growing some of my own lettuces and other plants this summer.
After reading a number of sites having concern about calcium powders and sprays, we decided to go with the cuttle bone in the tank option.
We also recently finished her new tortoise table. It is about 3' x 6' with a mix of about 3" of expanded coconut fiber and cypress mulch. She has a heat bulb and UVB bulb during the day, and ceramic heat bulb at night. We do the night one because the previous owners used a red reptile bulb at night and she seemed to want the warm at night. She got weird when we tried to take it away, but she has started sleeping under the day bulb at night where it cools off.
We soak her about every other day. We fill the tub with shallow amount of luke warm water, and let her wander around in there until she starts scrabbling at the sides to get out. Usually about 15 minutes or so.
So that's the long of the history. I have some other weird behavior questions, but I'll ask them later. Right now, my main concern is this weird growth between her scutes. She has thick creamy white growth bands, which, from what I can find, seem to be from rapid growth. But there are these weird "dents" in them. I will post pictures as soon as I get home tonight. She eats anything and everything we put in front of her, but I have noticed that she'll eat about half of what we give her in the morning, and then come back to it around lunch and finish it off. I'm not sure if we are over feeding her, and haven't really had luck finding how much you should feed.
Her skin is also peeling constantly. it doesn't seem like it bothers her, the skin looks fine underneath and there is no bad smell, but I'm not sure if we should be worried about this or not.
If this is all just part of her getting over the malnutrition from before, I didn't want to bother the vet. he does seem to know his stuff, I guess he raises Red Foots. But he didn't seem to know a whole lot about the Russian specific differences. For example, he kept telling us to feed her lots of fruit. We did not. she has not had any. But other than the breed specific differences, he did seem to know a fair amount about general tortoise stuff.
The short of it:
- How do we know if we are over feeding her?
- Should we be concerned about the growth spots and peeling?
- Is she maybe not quite full grown given the growth rings?
- Does it seem like we are doing anything else wrong?