Tortoise owner newbie :) with questions.....

[Nanny plum]

As the title says I have just got a horsefield tortoise 3 years old, called Marley, and he's lovely! Anyway from reading a lot of posts on here I can see the seller in the reptile shop has given me some mixed advice to what's here, so if anyone could help I would be immensely grateful, I just want to know I'm doing everything right.

I relied on him for advice for everything I needed, so I bought the tortoise table and it has two light fittings with two separate bulbs in, from looking on here I see I should maybe have a dome shaped lamp with combined bulb? There is no cover over my bulbs just bulbs is this wrong? He seems to sit under them all day until I turn them off at night, then stays there huddled up until morning.

He told me for substrate I needed this huge bag of habistat repti turf pellet like stuff, he said that's all I needed. From looking around I see topsoil is better? Should I switch?

He said all he needs to be fed on is spring greens from morrisons, now I had already looked this up and know that's wrong! So I have ordered a lot of seeds to grow my own and printed off the list of what to give and what not. So I'm fully supplied in that area I also went and got reptavite to sprinkle on his food is that correct?

He doesn't need water in his table just to bath him every day?

Sorry it's a bit of a read ! If anyone could post links to the exact lighting etc I need that would be great.

[lonelylayla]

Hello and welcome Great to see that you are on your way to building a happy home for your tort

A tortoise table is great - ideally substrate of topsoil, or, topsoil mixed with coir as they like to dig down. Having said that, it doesn't make financial sense to bin what you have at the moment so long as tort is getting on OK with it - maybe when you need to buy more?

Tort needs heat/light and also UV. This can be done in one of two ways:-
By using a combined bulb, or,
By using a separate spotlight for heat and and a UV striplight, which will also need reflector, ballast etc, or you can get complete units - 2 links attached for you. The choice is yours

http://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/rept...iv-313872.html

http://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/rept...od-375071.html

Probably best to avoid the "compact UV bulbs" there seems some discussion as to whether these damage tort eyes

For temperature, you need to create a basking spot of about 30 degrees and a cooler end of 22 degrees. In addition, ideally night time temperatures stay above 12-15 degrees.

spring greens are not an ideal food for your tort - well spotted For difficult times, romaine lettuce, florette crispy salad helps until you have weeds.
Link below for safe plants, flowers and weeds
http://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/s...19.asp?mode=az

A piece of cuttlefish and/or limestone flour sprinkled on food will help with the calcium. Water should always be available - which all torts seem to love to "muddy" faster than you can keep up As he is 3 years old, bathing twice a week should be fine I would think.

Hope that helps and there will be more chipping in shortly

Looking forward to photos

[becciwales]

Hi and welcome,
I agree with all Lynne has said.
I always have "fresh" water available. I use the inverted commas as mine sees fresh water and walks through it about 10 times until it's full of coco coir. If I change the water, the same happens. I bath mine pretty much every day, but Darwin isn't 1 yet.

I use coco coir instead of soil, I personally find this easier to store indoors as I don't have a garage.

I have a cuttlefish bone available at all times and sprinkle the limestone and nutrobal on alternate days. I find the Florette crispy goes down well. Good luck with growing your seeds, I'll be trying my hand at gardening this year too :-/

With the lights, I have a separate basking light to uv strip. I started with a combi bulb but it was faulty so I switched to the separate ones as they were easier for me to buy locally, though I believe either are fine. xx

[egyptiandan64]

Might want it more 32C to 34C under the basking spot and 15C at night may be to low for your Horsfields to want to be active. So if your Horsfields isn't waking up in the morning after being at 15C overnight, you'll have to raise the night time temperature (to between 18C and 20C) until your Horsfields gets up in the morning on it's own.

Danny

[becciwales]

Originally Posted by egyptiandan64

Might want it more 32C to 34C under the basking spot and 15C at night may be to low for your Horsfields to want to be active. So if your Horsfields isn't waking up in the morning after being at 15C overnight, you'll have to raise the night time temperature (to between 18C and 20C) until your Horsfields gets up in the morning on it's own.

Danny

I use a Ceramic Heat Emitter for this over night, I found that my Hermann wasn't waking up early x

[Pussygalore]

depending on the depth of your table, torts love to dig, then maybe you could 'push' the pellets to one corner/side and have a soil mix elsewhere, you do need a few inches of depth so that might work.

[Nanny plum]

Thanks everybody, I did get some cuttlefish yesterday as I read that somewhere too, so glad I did now. Just need to sort his lighting out now so thanks for the links above

[Nanny plum]

Originally Posted by lonelylayla

Hello and welcome Great to see that you are on your way to building a happy home for your tort

A tortoise table is great - ideally substrate of topsoil, or, topsoil mixed with coir as they like to dig down. Having said that, it doesn't make financial sense to bin what you have at the moment so long as tort is getting on OK with it - maybe when you need to buy more?

Tort needs heat/light and also UV. This can be done in one of two ways:-
By using a combined bulb, or,
By using a separate spotlight for heat and and a UV striplight, which will also need reflector, ballast etc, or you can get complete units - 2 links attached for you. The choice is yours

http://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/rept...iv-313872.html

http://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/rept...od-375071.html

Probably best to avoid the "compact UV bulbs" there seems some discussion as to whether these damage tort eyes

For temperature, you need to create a basking spot of about 30 degrees and a cooler end of 22 degrees. In addition, ideally night time temperatures stay above 12-15 degrees.

spring greens are not an ideal food for your tort - well spotted For difficult times, romaine lettuce, florette crispy salad helps until you have weeds.
Link below for safe plants, flowers and weeds
[url]http://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/site/plants_19.asp?mode=az[/url[/IMG]
A piece of cuttlefish and/or limestone flour sprinkled on food will help with the calcium. Water should always be available - which all torts seem to love to "muddy" faster than you can keep up As he is 3 years old, bathing twice a week should be fine I would think.

Hope that helps and there will be more chipping in shortly

Looking forward to photos

Il try and post some pics of him, I'd be interested to know that he looks healthy and he's in good condition if anyone could have a look I'd appreciate it



Hope this works!

[Nanny plum]

[Nanny plum]

And is it coco coir in a bag or the brick? Sorry if I sound thick! just want to get it right