He decided to sit in the water dish for a few minutes. Stress is one of the biggest causes of problems in reptiles. Pulling the little guy out of his tank everyday and putting him into water is going to definately raise his stress level. The reason captive reptiles tend to get dehydrated so much is because people don't give them humid areas to go to, and they keep them on a bone-dry substrate. Tortoises need to either have no top, or a screen top, and that actually works against the tortoise. When you've got a screen top, a heat lamp going, and a dry substrate, it's basically like a big jerky maker. I have mine on soil, which automatically is less dry than most other substrates (but not so moist as to cause problems...I actually use it with my desert lizards...bearded dragon, mali uromastyx). The added benefit to this is that some of the hide spots are very humid, and he seems to like hanging out underneath his haypile, which is also a humid place (since the hay holds the humidity of the dirt down from evaporating through the screen top).

If I find that I really need to soak him, I will, but in my opinion it's just more important that he isn't kept in a bone-dry cage. No reptile can be kept that way and not be at least a little dehydrated. Water is the key to life, so every reptile's environment should be made up of some water. Even if they are desert reptiles.

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