last night, the book I was reading made me lose track of the time. not a new thng, I'm afraid, happens a lot. so I realized it was 3 in the morning, and after the initial "yikes!" I was frantically prepairing to go to bed.

before bed every night, I check on the torts/snakes/and feed my fish. so, after feeding my fish, looking in on the snakes, I look at the cherry heads. mind you it's after three...

and one of them is awake! not only is it awake, but it's walking around and basking in the red 'night heat' lamp.

now, I should have mentioned that these guys are hatchlings. appart from their daily soak, and when I feed them, they are typically sleeping. that's fine for me, they're babies, babies sleep alot. I have there temps and humididty monitored and graphed and everything's just right, so I'm not worried.

anyways, this behaviour is kind of new to me. I was thinking that these little guys sleep all day, just about, and it was just my assumption that they sleep all night as well.

this little (guy/gal) was walking around the enclosure, and climbing up on the flat piece of grapevine I've got under the lamps(I put it in there for asthetics, but they have no problem with climbing all over it!) and just doing circles. and it lasted for a couple hours! I have a footprint of the enclosure of 6' by 2.5', and the tort was using every bit of it.

now for my questions. has anybody else noticed similar events with their torts? does anybody else use the red light for night heat? I've been considering getting a ceramic heat emitter so there is no light at night, only because I know red is one of their favorite colors.

this little guy's carpace temp(I gotta rayteck temp gun, best herping accesory known to man) was 80 degrees, at least five degrees more than thier 'snoozing temp'.

trying to think of what else I cantell you... my humidity in the warm side at night peaks to about 95%, during the day in the warm side it runs closer to 85-87%. the other half of the enclosure is always 95% or higher, regardless of time of day/night.

it's not my assumption that there is anything wrong with my little guy, just curious what you other keppers had to say. thanks for your time.
Jim

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