MateyTort
New Member
Hello! I have a russian tortoise that is approximately 3 years old. We recently got her July 1, 2018. We used to take her outside for walks when it was warm out. Now we are in the fall and it is too cold for her. She is kept indoors.
Last week she started eating less and burrowing. We would take her out to walk around the house, but the house is set at 65degrees Fahrenheit, which didn't make her move at all. She is in the Tortoise House by ZooMed. She has a basking lamp that gets up to 95degrees Fahrenheit as well as a UVB bulb. There is a hideout on either end of the house, water for drinking/soaking, and her food dish. The temperature used to not go below 70 at night during the summer when we would have the AC on. Now it is cooler and we keep our thermostat set to 65. I am not sure if the temperature is what is making her burrow and sleep all day and why she hasn't eaten much the past 5 days. She gets a 20-30 minute soak every week.
Is there a way we can help keep the temperature up more at night? Right now the basking lamp and the UVB lamp are hanging on a lamp stand over the screened part of the tortoise house. These are on a timer and come on at 730am and turn off at 930pm each day. We can't use a heating pad as the tortoise house is wood. I have never used a ceramic bulb for heat and wouldn't know where to put it since there are already two bulbs. We have a reptile thermometer/hygrometer set up on each end wall of the tortoise house. Sometimes when we get up in the morning it says it is almost 60degrees.
As for food, she gets leafy veggies such as radicchio, dandelion leaves and escarole.
Any suggestions on helping to maintain a consistent temperature as we are heading into colder and drier winter temps? We are worried about her
-Laura
Last week she started eating less and burrowing. We would take her out to walk around the house, but the house is set at 65degrees Fahrenheit, which didn't make her move at all. She is in the Tortoise House by ZooMed. She has a basking lamp that gets up to 95degrees Fahrenheit as well as a UVB bulb. There is a hideout on either end of the house, water for drinking/soaking, and her food dish. The temperature used to not go below 70 at night during the summer when we would have the AC on. Now it is cooler and we keep our thermostat set to 65. I am not sure if the temperature is what is making her burrow and sleep all day and why she hasn't eaten much the past 5 days. She gets a 20-30 minute soak every week.
Is there a way we can help keep the temperature up more at night? Right now the basking lamp and the UVB lamp are hanging on a lamp stand over the screened part of the tortoise house. These are on a timer and come on at 730am and turn off at 930pm each day. We can't use a heating pad as the tortoise house is wood. I have never used a ceramic bulb for heat and wouldn't know where to put it since there are already two bulbs. We have a reptile thermometer/hygrometer set up on each end wall of the tortoise house. Sometimes when we get up in the morning it says it is almost 60degrees.
As for food, she gets leafy veggies such as radicchio, dandelion leaves and escarole.
Any suggestions on helping to maintain a consistent temperature as we are heading into colder and drier winter temps? We are worried about her
-Laura