Hi. I'm new to this forum but I must thank all of you for the valuable information I've learned in the 4 days I've been reading this forum.
I bought my Greek at PetSmart about 3 weeks ago. His name is Leto (I'm pretty sure he's a boy because of the tail length. I'll get a picture when I get home). He's pretty small. The people at the store told us he is the smallest they ever had. I don't think he's a baby, but he's definitely young considering the size of some greek tortoises I've seen here.
We bought him a terrarium and we bought him a combo UVA/UVB bulb and a flukers fixture. The temp was around 95 in his basking but once we checked the temperature of the right side of the aquarium we noticed it was way too cold for him so we bought a ceramic heater to help today and a new set of thermometers. He has a hiding spot to the right but he mostly buries himself in the combo of bark and coconut fiber soil as he pleases.
We try to leave him alone and let him get accustomed to his new home. For the first couple of days he was held and let out a lot onto my bed to walk around. I read here it's best to give them time to adjust so I stopped with that. I give him food (so far the only thing he will eat is the packaged fruit and veggie mix but I've tried spring mix in little bits and yesterday I got him to eat a bit of a raspberry). I have once sprayed his food with a zilla vitamin suppliment because I was worried the little guy would get sick just having the rehydrated stuff he only eats. I give him luke warm soaks every few days. Sometimes he drinks, sometimes he doesn't which I guess is normal. He would poop every time except the past 3 days. No poop to clean up in the soak or in his terrarium. His shell is nice and hard, he is not soft except for his squishy parts. His color is orange beyond his neck and behind his scales. He is vibrant as ever, not pale. At a casual glance he looks healthy.
He's been very active up until now. Now refuses to eat (a VERY SMALL amount goes missing, whereas before he would eat his whole dish). I tried to hand feed him some of his food today but he just looked away in refuse. He has mostly become idle (spends his time buried, sleeping whereas before he was always running around like crazy a bit after the basking light turned on).
My deepest concern is the white around his mouth and the fact that he appears to be wheezing when I put him in for his soaks. Am I scaring the little guy? Could he be sick? This is my first tortoise so I'm a bit ignorant when it comes to this kind of stuff (aside from what I see here). Any help would be appreciated as I'm quite fond of him. I bought him to be my friend for life so I just want to do what's best for him.
I bought my Greek at PetSmart about 3 weeks ago. His name is Leto (I'm pretty sure he's a boy because of the tail length. I'll get a picture when I get home). He's pretty small. The people at the store told us he is the smallest they ever had. I don't think he's a baby, but he's definitely young considering the size of some greek tortoises I've seen here.
We bought him a terrarium and we bought him a combo UVA/UVB bulb and a flukers fixture. The temp was around 95 in his basking but once we checked the temperature of the right side of the aquarium we noticed it was way too cold for him so we bought a ceramic heater to help today and a new set of thermometers. He has a hiding spot to the right but he mostly buries himself in the combo of bark and coconut fiber soil as he pleases.
We try to leave him alone and let him get accustomed to his new home. For the first couple of days he was held and let out a lot onto my bed to walk around. I read here it's best to give them time to adjust so I stopped with that. I give him food (so far the only thing he will eat is the packaged fruit and veggie mix but I've tried spring mix in little bits and yesterday I got him to eat a bit of a raspberry). I have once sprayed his food with a zilla vitamin suppliment because I was worried the little guy would get sick just having the rehydrated stuff he only eats. I give him luke warm soaks every few days. Sometimes he drinks, sometimes he doesn't which I guess is normal. He would poop every time except the past 3 days. No poop to clean up in the soak or in his terrarium. His shell is nice and hard, he is not soft except for his squishy parts. His color is orange beyond his neck and behind his scales. He is vibrant as ever, not pale. At a casual glance he looks healthy.
He's been very active up until now. Now refuses to eat (a VERY SMALL amount goes missing, whereas before he would eat his whole dish). I tried to hand feed him some of his food today but he just looked away in refuse. He has mostly become idle (spends his time buried, sleeping whereas before he was always running around like crazy a bit after the basking light turned on).
My deepest concern is the white around his mouth and the fact that he appears to be wheezing when I put him in for his soaks. Am I scaring the little guy? Could he be sick? This is my first tortoise so I'm a bit ignorant when it comes to this kind of stuff (aside from what I see here). Any help would be appreciated as I'm quite fond of him. I bought him to be my friend for life so I just want to do what's best for him.