Thrown in the deep end

MEEJogja

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Hi all,

I know this is the introduction forum, but I'd like to put my situation out there and see if anyone has any advise for me. This has all happened very fast!

Firstly I should say that a Brit living in Indonesia long term.

I had both tortoises and terrapins as a kid and have long had a dream to own them again as an adult. It is clear that local species need a lot of help to ride out this crazy period of human civilization, so I have only been looking at Indonesian species. In fact every plant in my garden is endemic to this island, which I am very proud of. Anyway, over the last couple of weeks, there has been a flurry of activity on the Manouria Emys group about registering your tortoise with the local government. They have been protected by Indonesian law for the last 2 years and the grace period for registering your Emys is coming to an end (on Wednesday actually).

I told my partner about this, who said 'oh, my family have some of those'. Of course I had to confirm, and they do... in the most dreadful looking enclosure you have ever seen. Long story short, not wanting to be doing something illegal and knowing they are being neglected, they felt they would have a better home here. They are on their way to us now. I should be able to have them looked over by a vet, microchipped and take them for inspection by the authorities in the nick of time.

I need to give these buggers the best possible chance, turning the back garden into an awesome forest tortoise habitat, with a wallowing pool, plenty of areas to dig and hide etc. I am of course worried about absolutely everything, especially after reading through some FAQ posts here! I am worried about them co-habitating, although they have been together for at least 5 or 6 years. I'm hoping I won't need to separate them.

My main worry is rats. Lots of tortoise keepers in the UK have problems with rats but it seems to be limited to during hibernation. I don't think there is a big rat problem where I am, but my garden backs onto a paddy field, there are inevitably rats around. Will I need to put them away / or lock them in some rat proof enclosure each night, or will they be safe in their burrows?

Any other advice would be very welcome. They have 3, 2 females and 1 male (I will need to confirm that) around 7-8 years old and 20-30 cm.

Thanks for reading my bumbly post!
 

wellington

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We always recommend locking them up at night. If you build them a shed with a ramp for them to get in and out on their own, with a little help from you, they will learn to put themselves in that shed at night and you just have to close up the ramp door. Open it in the a.m. and they will come out on their own.
If your yard us big enough for the group with lots of hiding spots and a few water stations and food stations you shouldn't have a problem them being together.
If we knew the sex ratio we could better recommend if any should be separated or anything else added to help keep them together.
 

Yossarian

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The rat issue is more of one with brumation, torts that go dormant for weeks or months can be susceptible to vermin finding them and eating their legs while they are too slowed down to defend themselves.
 

Yvonne G

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I have kept Mep and Mee for over 20 years. They don't dig a burrow and they don't brumate.
In my first years with the species they had cinder block houses (like dog houses), with pig blankets on the floor. Now they have an insulated shed containing a sleeping box with radiant heat panels for warmth.

Living where the tortoises come from you probably won't have cold winters, so won't need winter heat.

One male to two females is a good group. The male won't harass the females too much as long as their area is large enough.

Because your tortoises don't brumate you don't have to worry about rats chewing on them. In fact, if the tortoise is fast enough, the opposite would be true.

I always make sure all my tortoises are in their sheds at night and I close their doors.
 

MEEJogja

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I have kept Mep and Mee for over 20 years. They don't dig a burrow and they don't brumate.


Thank you all for the reassurance! I know they don't burrow per se Yvonne, but I have seen lots of pictures of them taking a rest deep in undergrowth. I was planning on digging out a shallow area, filling it with bark chips, and covering it with a domed roof of turf. That would act as a damp protected place for them to go if they choose to.
 

MEEJogja

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Incidentally they arrived today, all looking remarkably healthy. Despite the long journey, the female was chomping down on papaya and leafy greens within 3 1/2 mins of arriving. Unfortunately just as they were relaxing and getting a little bit more comfortable around me, I had to destroy any trust I had built and box them up to take them to the vets :( I hope they can forgive me with time.
WhatsApp Image 2021-01-20 at 00.04.01.jpeg
 

Yvonne G

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Thank you all for the reassurance! I know they don't burrow per se Yvonne, but I have seen lots of pictures of them taking a rest deep in undergrowth. I was planning on digging out a shallow area, filling it with bark chips, and covering it with a domed roof of turf. That would act as a damp protected place for them to go if they choose to.
They make their own cover, males and females, by scraping up leaves and detritus into a pile. The females do this to nest, but males do it too for shelter. Your idea sounds fine.
 

MEEJogja

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I have seen people on this forum say things like 'this is a place for you to ask questions to knowledgeable breeders, not your personal blog' - I have also been clicking through the new posts section on occasion and clicked a thread called something like 'Will my baby Sulcata be okay?', only to discover that there had been 6 years of updates since the original post, and I could joyfully follow the life of this animal and their owner through the years. I figure I'll make the occasional post here, and it may amount to something worth skimming through in a few years time. Fingers crossed no one objects!

This will be a strange post, picking the subject areas based on the photos I have on my phone. It is dark here, so I will leave pictures of enclosure progress etc until another time when I can go out and take pics.

Here they are, all microchipped, registered and settling in. They were a bit shy/traumatised at first, but they have really come out of their shell recently and are quite demanding when it comes to food.
1613467063857.jpg

We were put on the spot when it came to naming them prior to microchipping, but we have called them Feti (Fatty - as she immediately started eating within minutes of arriving), Chico and Bejo (Lucky in Javanese).

Food wise, they absolutely love Tarrow leaves. They will turn down banana or papaya if there is some on offer. Luckily it grows at the side of paddy fields so you will find me scouring the local area for them every other day. The locals find it very funny... or strange. The amounts you can see below will not last one day, even when supplemented with a kapidolo style jelly and a couple of small bits of fruit. They tolerate the jelly, but I haven't convinced them to eat dry, or moistened pellets of any kind yet.

1613467405029.jpg1613467404961.jpg
1613467404937.jpg1613466970547.jpg

I built a silly wooden box, which I semi buried and turfed, thinking that one may take to it on occassion during a warm day. Little did I know they would all pile on top of each other on one side and spend most of their time in there. It is also very tricky to clean out as it does not have a removeable top. I have piled up leaves in several spots, which they do use on occassion but I am going to build a couple more comfy boxes for them to rest in, so they don't need to pile into this one all the time.

1613473878629 (1).jpg

When they have the rest of the garden to roam in, they do get up to some more natural behaviour:

1613467405089.jpg

But also some not so natural behavior:
1613466970665.jpg
 

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Jan A

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I have seen people on this forum say things like 'this is a place for you to ask questions to knowledgeable breeders, not your personal blog' - I have also been clicking through the new posts section on occasion and clicked a thread called something like 'Will my baby Sulcata be okay?', only to discover that there had been 6 years of updates since the original post, and I could joyfully follow the life of this animal and their owner through the years. I figure I'll make the occasional post here, and it may amount to something worth skimming through in a few years time. Fingers crossed no one objects!

This will be a strange post, picking the subject areas based on the photos I have on my phone. It is dark here, so I will leave pictures of enclosure progress etc until another time when I can go out and take pics.

Here they are, all microchipped, registered and settling in. They were a bit shy/traumatised at first, but they have really come out of their shell recently and are quite demanding when it comes to food.
View attachment 318413

We were put on the spot when it came to naming them prior to microchipping, but we have called them Feti (Fatty - as she immediately started eating within minutes of arriving), Chico and Bejo (Lucky in Javanese).

Food wise, they absolutely love Tarrow leaves. They will turn down banana or papaya if there is some on offer. Luckily it grows at the side of paddy fields so you will find me scouring the local area for them every other day. The locals find it very funny... or strange. The amounts you can see below will not last one day, even when supplemented with a kapidolo style jelly and a couple of small bits of fruit. They tolerate the jelly, but I haven't convinced them to eat dry, or moistened pellets of any kind yet.

View attachment 318414View attachment 318415
View attachment 318417View attachment 318416

I built a silly wooden box, which I semi buried and turfed, thinking that one may take to it on occassion during a warm day. Little did I know they would all pile on top of each other on one side and spend most of their time in there. It is also very tricky to clean out as it does not have a removeable top. I have piled up leaves in several spots, which they do use on occassion but I am going to build a couple more comfy boxes for them to rest in, so they don't need to pile into this one all the time.

View attachment 318420

When they have the rest of the garden to roam in, they do get up to some more natural behaviour:

View attachment 318427

But also some not so natural behavior:
View attachment 318428
They are beautiful! What a lovely problem to have.
 

MEEJogja

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So, it's been just over a year since we got them, and it's probably time for an update. The torts have all been growing at an incredible rate, their behaviour has improved as they have become comfortable in their home, and they are generally doing really well.

I weigh (and attempt to measure... but am never all that confident in my results) them around the end of the month, so here are starting and ending stats. I should have weighed them today, which would have been almost exactly 12 months, but for some reason felt it would be better to wait until the end of the month.


Ciko (Male)Feti (Female)Bejo (could go either way)
Weight (01/02/2021)3344g2930g4000g
Weight (09/01/2022)5700g
(+2356g)
6400g
(+3470g)
6020g
(+2020g)

Length wise, their plastrons are all around 32-35cm right now. I'm not sure I had the knack of measuring them at the beginning, but I wrote down 28 for Feti and 30 for the others.

Diet

Their staple is Taro Leaves (which I think you guys often call elephant ears, but I'm not 100% sure). Those have now taken over every crevice of our small garden, so we rarely need to go out collecting. I make sure those are always available and they remain a favourite.

We give them a 'big feed' every other day, which usually involves making a salad of some sort. This is necessary because Ciko will pick and choose unless everything is finely chopped. He will take one small square of papaya over an all you can eat buffet of greens.

Here was todays feed. We have Mushrooms, Quail eggs, Papaya from the garden, some kind of Lettuce, Dragon fruit and pellets. Pellets and Mushrooms needed hydrating. I typically sprinkle a little bit of Calcium powder when we feed mushrooms, but figured this wasn't required due to the quail eggs (and shells).

1644746344134.jpg

1644746344115.jpg

1644746344071c.jpg

1644746344045c.jpg

Enclosure

A couple of developments. Firstly, after I posted a concern about some lesions on Ciko's neck, some of the responses prompted me to do something about the humidity in the enclosure. It is now rainy season, so it is much less of a concern, but I put some measures in place for the dry season. FYI Cikos neck is now back to normal. We concluded he may have had a run in with an ants nest :)

I created a small concrete pond with waterfall filter. They rarely ever use it, but they do have a little circuit they like to walk, which involves getting neck deep in water and having a shower. They seem to like this, and stop for a moment when their heads are under the waterfall before carrying on.

I have seen them all drinking from this too, which is definitely a good sign, and the other day Bejo was hanging out in it for seemingly no reason, which was very exciting. The filter is more or less ineffective, I drain it and scrub it every day or every other day... and clean the filters, otherwise it is full of poop.

1644746343962.jpg


1644746344007.jpg

As far as humidity goes, I also put a set of sprinklers on a timer, however that is not operational at the moment as it rains every day, so I'll post about that come dry season.

And finally, 6 months or so ago I demolished the silly underground hide I built (which was where the pond now is) and built a larger hide with a removable top. This is barely liftable because I decided to put a grass top on it, which started off looking good, but now looks... well:
1644746343992c.jpg

They have another hide at the far end of the enclosure, but it was made out of bamboo, and they have been slowly destroying it to the point that it is now more or less just a frame that the bamboo strips were fastened to... and a big pile of bamboo strips sitting on top. There is plenty of undergrowth for them to hide in for the moment.

General Health and Wellbeing

On two occassions, at the very beginning, and more recently, there were observable pinworms in their stool, and we treated with Panacur two weeks apart after consulting with the vet. It seemed to work both times, however sending a stool sample off for confirmation does not seem to be an option locally.

I was worried about the strength of Ciko's back legs as he splays them out when he eats... but for the longest time he was mounting anything he could find, and when he actually walks, he stands up very straight.

Here is Bejo, who walks as tall as he/she possibly can:

1644746343977.jpg

Now, Bejo looks a little bit fat in the picture above, which leads me onto my latest concern. Feti eats an incredible amount, and does not seem to get full. The others eat their fill and walk off, but she finishes all the food and then goes off to forage tarro leaves. Her activity levels are also much lower than the others. The other day I was watching her eat and noticed she has fat armpits, like the obese snapping turtles I see people posting on facebook all the time. You can actually see this in one of the images above.

I was always pleased when they put on a good amount of weight at the monthly weigh ins, but now I'm thinking that the quail eggs and pellets will need to become a thing of the past (currently we feed protein and pellets perhaps twice a week, usually on different days).

Something to tweak anyway. Thanks for reading my rambly post :)
 

jsheffield

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So, it's been just over a year since we got them, and it's probably time for an update. The torts have all been growing at an incredible rate, their behaviour has improved as they have become comfortable in their home, and they are generally doing really well.

I weigh (and attempt to measure... but am never all that confident in my results) them around the end of the month, so here are starting and ending stats. I should have weighed them today, which would have been almost exactly 12 months, but for some reason felt it would be better to wait until the end of the month.


Ciko (Male)Feti (Female)Bejo (could go either way)
Weight (01/02/2021)3344g2930g4000g
Weight (09/01/2022)5700g
(+2356g)
6400g
(+3470g)
6020g
(+2020g)

Length wise, their plastrons are all around 32-35cm right now. I'm not sure I had the knack of measuring them at the beginning, but I wrote down 28 for Feti and 30 for the others.

Diet

Their staple is Taro Leaves (which I think you guys often call elephant ears, but I'm not 100% sure). Those have now taken over every crevice of our small garden, so we rarely need to go out collecting. I make sure those are always available and they remain a favourite.

We give them a 'big feed' every other day, which usually involves making a salad of some sort. This is necessary because Ciko will pick and choose unless everything is finely chopped. He will take one small square of papaya over an all you can eat buffet of greens.

Here was todays feed. We have Mushrooms, Quail eggs, Papaya from the garden, some kind of Lettuce, Dragon fruit and pellets. Pellets and Mushrooms needed hydrating. I typically sprinkle a little bit of Calcium powder when we feed mushrooms, but figured this wasn't required due to the quail eggs (and shells).

View attachment 340484

View attachment 340485

View attachment 340488

View attachment 340490

Enclosure

A couple of developments. Firstly, after I posted a concern about some lesions on Ciko's neck, some of the responses prompted me to do something about the humidity in the enclosure. It is now rainy season, so it is much less of a concern, but I put some measures in place for the dry season. FYI Cikos neck is now back to normal. We concluded he may have had a run in with an ants nest :)

I created a small concrete pond with waterfall filter. They rarely ever use it, but they do have a little circuit they like to walk, which involves getting neck deep in water and having a shower. They seem to like this, and stop for a moment when their heads are under the waterfall before carrying on.

I have seen them all drinking from this too, which is definitely a good sign, and the other day Bejo was hanging out in it for seemingly no reason, which was very exciting. The filter is more or less ineffective, I drain it and scrub it every day or every other day... and clean the filters, otherwise it is full of poop.

View attachment 340491


View attachment 340492

As far as humidity goes, I also put a set of sprinklers on a timer, however that is not operational at the moment as it rains every day, so I'll post about that come dry season.

And finally, 6 months or so ago I demolished the silly underground hide I built (which was where the pond now is) and built a larger hide with a removable top. This is barely liftable because I decided to put a grass top on it, which started off looking good, but now looks... well:
View attachment 340493

They have another hide at the far end of the enclosure, but it was made out of bamboo, and they have been slowly destroying it to the point that it is now more or less just a frame that the bamboo strips were fastened to... and a big pile of bamboo strips sitting on top. There is plenty of undergrowth for them to hide in for the moment.

General Health and Wellbeing

On two occassions, at the very beginning, and more recently, there were observable pinworms in their stool, and we treated with Panacur two weeks apart after consulting with the vet. It seemed to work both times, however sending a stool sample off for confirmation does not seem to be an option locally.

I was worried about the strength of Ciko's back legs as he splays them out when he eats... but for the longest time he was mounting anything he could find, and when he actually walks, he stands up very straight.

Here is Bejo, who walks as tall as he/she possibly can:

View attachment 340494

Now, Bejo looks a little bit fat in the picture above, which leads me onto my latest concern. Feti eats an incredible amount, and does not seem to get full. The others eat their fill and walk off, but she finishes all the food and then goes off to forage tarro leaves. Her activity levels are also much lower than the others. The other day I was watching her eat and noticed she has fat armpits, like the obese snapping turtles I see people posting on facebook all the time. You can actually see this in one of the images above.

I was always pleased when they put on a good amount of weight at the monthly weigh ins, but now I'm thinking that the quail eggs and pellets will need to become a thing of the past (currently we feed protein and pellets perhaps twice a week, usually on different days).

Something to tweak anyway. Thanks for reading my rambly post :)
Fantastic post and pictures!!!

Thanks for sharing all of this!

Jamie
 

MEEJogja

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Fantastic post and pictures!!!

Thanks for sharing all of this!

Jamie
Thanks Jamie, I have also been watching Aretha with great interest ?

I know you put an unbelievable amount of time into this forum but if you have any more time to give, MEP need a Wikipedia page ;)

I have had the MEE page in drafts for months, just needing me to find a spare evening to finish it off and I think you are more than qualified to basically rephrase and cite mountaintortoise.com like I have been ?

I do have an agenda by the way, I occasionally do (usually Indonesian water turtle) identifications on inaturalist, which draws species data from Wikipedia. Because there is no wiki page for MEE, its official name has become the 'Burmese brown tortoise' which doesn't sit well with me, seeing as neither it's current range or theorised historical range goes anywhere near Burma. I am hoping to get the official common name on inaturalist changed to the 'southern/brown mountain tortoise'.

I have no bone to pick with MEP being known as Burmese black as they do occur in burma, but still It doesn't feel right that MEE would have one but MEP wouldn't, so if you feel like taking that task on, I'd appreciate it. You could always have a picture of Aretha as the main article image too, which is a little incentive :)
 

MEEJogja

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Your Tortoises are freaking beautiful. Cannot wait to see how my grows up.
Thanks @methos75 - I'd like to see a thread with updates on your little one... And a growth log if possible! Still trying to accurately guess the age of mine, but data is sparse.
 

methos75

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Yeah I ordered a scale of amazon so I can accuratly keep track of growth and a journal. I've been keeping Tortoises and turtles for decades but never kept records, but now that I'm older and only keeping a few select species in going to start.
 

Tom

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I love this thread. I love this species, but my climate is all wrong for them, so I've never gotten any.

That fountain/pool is awesome. I want that for my tortoises.

The little white decorative rocks all around the enclosure have me very concerned. Tortoises will usually eat that sort of thing and it can cause an impaction. I would remove those ASAP. I've seen lots of X-rays with round stones like that inside of tortoises.

I don't know who said "this forum is not your personal blog...", but that is non-sense. If anyone gives you any trouble, we will shut them down immediately. These updates and pics are welcome, and they are exactly what this forum is all about. Please carry on.

Your growth rate looks fantastic.

I look forward to more updates going forward. I will live vicariously through your pictures and words, enjoying a wonderful species that I don't have.
 

Len B

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manouria emys emys beerzymes.dk, is where I found this thesis. It's 100 pages in PDF format with great information about Mee in the wild. You can also find it by typing in his name.
 

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MEEJogja

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I love this thread. I love this species, but my climate is all wrong for them, so I've never gotten any.

That fountain/pool is awesome. I want that for my tortoises.

The little white decorative rocks all around the enclosure have me very concerned. Tortoises will usually eat that sort of thing and it can cause an impaction. I would remove those ASAP. I've seen lots of X-rays with round stones like that inside of tortoises.

I don't know who said "this forum is not your personal blog...", but that is non-sense. If anyone gives you any trouble, we will shut them down immediately. These updates and pics are welcome, and they are exactly what this forum is all about. Please carry on.

Your growth rate looks fantastic.

I look forward to more updates going forward. I will live vicariously through your pictures and words, enjoying a wonderful species that I don't have.
Thanks Tom!

I know, you have mentioned those pebbles before, and I have been a little slow to react. Part of me doesn't feel like they could be ingested, as they are graded to a size that's bigger than any of their bites, but another part of me thinks that now I have been warned, I should act.

It is on my radar and I'm looking into an alternative. I think it would need to be paved, and some kind of drainage added, as that area has a tiled roof and grass would not do well.
 

MEEJogja

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manouria emys emys beerzymes.dk, is where I found this thesis. It's 100 pages in PDF format with great information about Mee in the wild. You can also find it by typing in his name.
A very good resource, on a very random website. Thanks for sharing!
 
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