HappyHerbie
New Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2014
- Messages
- 9
Hi everyone,
I've had Herbie, my 7 month old Hermann tortoise, for 6 weeks now. During this time, I feel like his behaviour has changed.....he's eating less, not as active and sleeping so much more.
I'm really happy with his enclosure - lots of heat, UV bulb, open air, safe place and a 'bedroom' for hiding in. The bulbs come on at 9am and the UV bulb goes off at 5pm while the heat lamp goes off at 8pm. I use mainly a soil substrate with some sand and additional newspaper in his bedroom. It's deep enough for him to burrow in. He has fresh water every day and a good variety of fresh food - mainly dandelions, rocket, parsley and lots of other tortoise specific fresh herbs that I've got growing on my windowsill. I've started giving him a pet shop pellet each day as I was concerned he wasn't eating so much. He eats this and I've often wiped a dandelion leaf in this pellet mush to encourage him to eat other food.
He has a soak every other day. A few days ago, he did a small poo in the bath but before that, it was weeks ago when he last pooed in the bath. I've not seen any white stuff (oxates?) for a few weeks.
His daily routine is something like this: crawls out of bed about 10:30/11am to bask then mooches around for a while. He might eat something. Then is usually back in his bedroom for about 3:30/4pm. I'm in the UK and it's too chilly to take him outside. On warmer days, he has appeared to enjoy his little play time outside.
When I first bought him he weighed 46g. He lost weight (a big poo?!) and went down to 42g and is now back up to 45g.
I've attached various photos. I don't keep the thermometer in there all the time, I was just checking the temperatures!
I'm not sure if I'm worrying unnecessarily or if Herbie is poorly. Please help!
I've had Herbie, my 7 month old Hermann tortoise, for 6 weeks now. During this time, I feel like his behaviour has changed.....he's eating less, not as active and sleeping so much more.
I'm really happy with his enclosure - lots of heat, UV bulb, open air, safe place and a 'bedroom' for hiding in. The bulbs come on at 9am and the UV bulb goes off at 5pm while the heat lamp goes off at 8pm. I use mainly a soil substrate with some sand and additional newspaper in his bedroom. It's deep enough for him to burrow in. He has fresh water every day and a good variety of fresh food - mainly dandelions, rocket, parsley and lots of other tortoise specific fresh herbs that I've got growing on my windowsill. I've started giving him a pet shop pellet each day as I was concerned he wasn't eating so much. He eats this and I've often wiped a dandelion leaf in this pellet mush to encourage him to eat other food.
He has a soak every other day. A few days ago, he did a small poo in the bath but before that, it was weeks ago when he last pooed in the bath. I've not seen any white stuff (oxates?) for a few weeks.
His daily routine is something like this: crawls out of bed about 10:30/11am to bask then mooches around for a while. He might eat something. Then is usually back in his bedroom for about 3:30/4pm. I'm in the UK and it's too chilly to take him outside. On warmer days, he has appeared to enjoy his little play time outside.
When I first bought him he weighed 46g. He lost weight (a big poo?!) and went down to 42g and is now back up to 45g.
I've attached various photos. I don't keep the thermometer in there all the time, I was just checking the temperatures!
I'm not sure if I'm worrying unnecessarily or if Herbie is poorly. Please help!
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