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Sleeping advice

Posted: 03 Jun 2020, 11:44
by Melvintort
Hi after a little advice, we picked our tortoise up several days ago, he/she is 8 months old. How often do they sleep? Melvin is always sleeping. We will wake him and bath him in the morning, show him to his plate of weeds and flowers but he’s not interested and will just go back into his bedroom and go to sleep. Yesterday was the same, we decided to put him outside yesterday lunchtime so took him from his bedroom and into his enclosure outside, he did eat a flower and then decided to hide and go to sleep under a rock all afternoon. Is it new surroundings that he’s just getting used to? Are we doing anything wrong, should we be concerned, is this normal? Not sure how much an 8 month old sleeps? He’s in a table with soil, has access to water, food, has a heat/uv lamp that is at 30 degrees - never seen him under it though. Any advice greatly received.

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 03 Jun 2020, 12:50
by lin
Hiya
Yes, I think your probably right in that the little fella is new and just going to take some time to settle.
Your best bet is to try and distence yourself during this process and watch from behind a door or just out of his line of sight, for feeding place his food down and leave the room watching through the door crack. I think in a few days you will see a difference in his behaviour and he will start to get used to his surroundings.

Just so we can double check can you tell us the temps he is in at the cool end of his enclosure and a photo of the whole setup will enable us to see any easy tweeks that might make a difference.

Lin

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 03 Jun 2020, 13:59
by Melvintort
He’s actually still asleep from this morning. The temp in the cool part is 25, not sure how to cool it down any further?

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 03 Jun 2020, 15:40
by lin
By the cool part do you mean inside the sleeping area it is 25°C.
I think looking at the photo he is to hot and looking for a cooler area and inside the sleeping area is the coolest he can find.
When you take the temps can you take them at about the height of where the shell would come to, both under the lamp and again in the bedding area (oh, just found a photo that might help).

To adjust the temps you could move the hanging lamp (is that a combined heat/UVB) down to one end of the table and then take the top of the bedding area and measure them again to see what you get. We are looking for a cool end of around 18 to 20°C

Lin






[attachment=0]Thermometer checking_TTT_Debbie_Swindells.jpg[/attachment]

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 03 Jun 2020, 20:05
by Melvintort
Thanks Lin, yes it is a combined lamp. The pic is a little deceiving as the lamp is down at one end. I’ve done the temps and the one under the lamp is 31 degrees and in the sleeping area it’s 25. I’m going to purchase a better temp probe as this one isn’t the best. Saying all this he has been out and about this afternoon - which he hasn’t done before, and he has eaten all that was left out for him, I think he just needs a little time to adjust. In view of the temp being 25 ( will confirm with a new probe) is there anything else that can be done two lower the temps a few degrees?
Many thanks.

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 04 Jun 2020, 21:04
by lin
Thats all sounding pretty possitive and I do think your right and its a settling in period.

To lower the temps from 25°C if you take the lid off the sleeping area or even half off you will find the temps at that end will drop a few deg. Let me know if that works and we will see what else we can do if it doesn't help.

As that lamp is a combined bulb can you do me a favour and wrap some foil around the outside if the cage so that the light is not visible to human eyes. It could be quite harmful and would rather you not chance it.

Hope thats helpful and speak soon.

Lin

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 05 Jun 2020, 09:02
by Nina
Just a quick opinion -- your bulb already has a silver coating on the top part of it, so that will protect your eyes to a certain extent, and as long as you are not looking directly into the uncoated, bottom part it is not quite so dangerous (but sitll not ideal). However, if you do put some aluminium foil around the bulb as an extra relfector and to protect your eyes, you need to make sure that it is very wide of bulb, or just a circle around the top so that you can't look down into the bulb, because if the foil is too close it will reflect heat back onto the bulb and that could cause it to overheat.

Nina

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 05 Jun 2020, 16:27
by Melvintort
Thanks for the info, I have put a bit of foil around so it’s no so “in your face now”. It looks much better and has focused the light better. It hasn’t altered the heat at shell level so that’s good.

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 05 Jun 2020, 19:40
by Nina
Excellent -- glad that has worked (thanks, Lin, for thinking of that). With the cooler weather it will be cooler in your table too, so the temperature in the sleeping area will go down quite a bit and you shouldn't have a problem. let's hope that young Melvin settles in nicely and starts waking up by himself soon -- do let us know how he gets on.

Nina

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 30 Jun 2020, 14:45
by Summerills
Hi
Can I ask how Melvin is doing now?
I have a very sleepy newbie too and just wondering whether he is just getting used to us

Thanks

Nic

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 30 Jun 2020, 15:44
by Melvintort
He’s not to bad now we’ve changed his enclosure a little. We removed a bedroom compartment that came with the setup to open it up a little as he was always in there, we have put a humid hide in - although he went in for the first few days and hasn’t been in since. We did a worm check which came back negative although there was a comment to say the sample was very small and they suggest repeating it in 3 months. He still sleeps some what but not as much as before.
They advise a worm check annually or if you have recently had a tortoise so I would look into that.
Thanks

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 01 Jul 2020, 07:35
by Summerills
Thanks
I decided to leave him be yesterday just to see what he would do if I didn’t get him up etc and he slept at the colder end of his table for a full 24 hours! I put him under his lamp at that point and he woke up a bit, but kept trying to go back and bury himself. So I gave him his daily bath and he had a bite of food but then went back to bed!

Trying a different tack today and have put him under his lamp first thing to see how that changes his day

Re: Sleeping advice

Posted: 03 Jul 2020, 15:59
by Nina
Hope your new techniques are working!

Nina