Hi everyone,
For a while my russian tort who is around 4 and a female has been digging at the walls. She used to do this in the past but usually after upgrading her past enclosures she would be okay.
A couple of weeks ago she started doing it again in her IKEA bookshelf enclosure (inspired by the post from this sub) with shower curtains. So I decided to upgrade it again and since my space was limited, I just bought a second bigger bookshelf and made a makeshift ramp between the two. At first I was very happy with the way it came out but after putting my tort in it she started doing the same exact thing. I gave her some time hoping that it was all due to the changes, but it’s been weeks now and she’s still doing it even though she moves between the levels.
I’ve payed attention to her behavior and noticed she has two modes: one is the wall scratching behavior and the other is she will sleep in her hide most of the day and maybe come out to bask once or twice while generally staying in the same area. The second behavior only happens after I feed her dry pellets and she eats a good bit of them. I’ve tried giving her a lot of greens before to see if it has the same affect but usually she will just eat a good bit and then go back to digging at the walls.
The size of her enclosure is 93x31 downstairs and 73x31 upstairs. Heat and uvb is measured and okay. The substrate upstairs is shallow but downstairs she has deep areas where she can burrow. I plan to add more substrate soon.
Any help or ideas is appreciated!
For a while my russian tort who is around 4 and a female has been digging at the walls. She used to do this in the past but usually after upgrading her past enclosures she would be okay.
A couple of weeks ago she started doing it again in her IKEA bookshelf enclosure (inspired by the post from this sub) with shower curtains. So I decided to upgrade it again and since my space was limited, I just bought a second bigger bookshelf and made a makeshift ramp between the two. At first I was very happy with the way it came out but after putting my tort in it she started doing the same exact thing. I gave her some time hoping that it was all due to the changes, but it’s been weeks now and she’s still doing it even though she moves between the levels.
I’ve payed attention to her behavior and noticed she has two modes: one is the wall scratching behavior and the other is she will sleep in her hide most of the day and maybe come out to bask once or twice while generally staying in the same area. The second behavior only happens after I feed her dry pellets and she eats a good bit of them. I’ve tried giving her a lot of greens before to see if it has the same affect but usually she will just eat a good bit and then go back to digging at the walls.
The size of her enclosure is 93x31 downstairs and 73x31 upstairs. Heat and uvb is measured and okay. The substrate upstairs is shallow but downstairs she has deep areas where she can burrow. I plan to add more substrate soon.
Any help or ideas is appreciated!
