Unhappy Petrie

[Granolagal]

Hey there,
My littlest Hermann's Petrie seems to not be doing very well. Her shell is great and her eyes and nostrils are clear but she isn't very active at all and is losing weight. She spends a good portion of the day sleeping and has only a few nibbles of her food if at all. Of the three baby tortoises that I have she has always been the least active, but she is also the tiniest. She did however used to have a healthy appetite. I noticed with Zippy that the older he is getting the more active (and gluttonous) he has become.

In terms of their husbandry; Petrie is boarded with Crush in a
rubbermaid with a substrate of 75%organic soil 25%playsand, they have a 'Reptisun 5.0 UVB' fluorescent that is 11" from them and a basking area that reaches between 85-90 degrees. They are alternately fed weeds and a mixture of endive, chicory, escarole and spring mix sprinkled with 'Rep-Cal' Calcium with D3. They are fed for three days and then fast for the fourth. They are soaked daily for 10-15min. and have a shallow dish of water always available to them.

If anyone has any idea of why she might be going down hill please let me know. All advice would be awesome!

Thanks so much!
Cheers, Carley

 

[elegans]

First off I would pull the water out immediately. They certainly had no need for it since you soak them, and on that matter every 2 to 3 days is plenty even for a very small tortoise. As I am sure you have noticed, one of the things that they do when soaked is to evacuate their bowels. This can happen before they have been able to uptake all of the nutrition from the food. Breaking down cellulose for a living is not the easiest thing to do. Your diet sounds good, I hope that this helps. Douglas

 

[Granolagal]

Thank you Douglas! I will try soaking them less often, but I am not sure how I feel about taking their water out as they all drink from it daily. Of the three tortoises Petrie is actually the only one that doesn't evacuate her bowels while soaking. She very rarely goes all the way into her water dish, she more teeter-totters back and forth getting drinks (it's pretty funny actually)