Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It's interesting how much the sun's heat affects a tortoise, at least my Hermanns. I house her indoors but try to get her outside almost everyday. Although she has a Mercury Vapor while inside, anytime I let her bask in the sun outside for about 15 to 20 minutes, it's like she transforms into a wind-up toy and starts motoring around like there's no tomorrow. Even after bringing her inside out of the heat, she's usually good for another half hour to one hour of energetic exercise until she winds down. If others house their torts inside and rarely get a chance to get them into the hot sun, I'd say try it and see how energetic these little dudes get. I even find she's so ramped up that she doesn't want to slow down and take the time to eat right out of the sun, I usually let her chow down before or later that day.

Just my thoughts.

Fred

However, I think there may be some difference causes. For one, I think that being moved into an area with much more stimuli affects the tortoise, but I also think that in general most don't keep them at adequate temperatures indoors. If you go outside on a sunny day with a temperature gun and measure surface temperatures of dirt patches where torts like to bask (or better, measure the temps of the torts shell) I think we might be suprised.

Some info I just put up on a different forum (because I figured I would get flamed here) is that I think for the most part we have been keeping our tortoises too cold. In the cattle trough I keep my female russians in I gave them three basking sites, and they always choose the same one. I measured the surface temperatures of the dirt with my temp gun and found some temperatures as high as 170f! (mostly the average was around 130-140ish). I think we underestimate how the ground heats up outside in the sun, even in mild climates. This is actually the spot where my gravid female chose to lay her eggs as well. I've also noticed that they don't sit under the bulb constantly. They bask for a few minutes to aquire some energy (in simple terms), then they expend it foraging and come back to recharge their batteries. They are offered two other basking spots, one that temped out to be around 100f, and another that is around 90. Before you say that they are attracted by the higher light of the hot bulb, let me say that it is the darkest bulb of all three. It is a red bulb, and it's only 60 watts.

Just some interesting observations about heat and torts. I'm curious as to what kind of temperatures we might be able to get by pointing a temp gun at the shell of an aldabra that's been basking.

Get a tempgun if you get a chance. They are such great tools, but I didn't even use it to set the temperatures. I gave the torts choices, and they found their own temperatures. I'm really interested to see what kind of temperatures I can get in the outdoor pen when summer rolls around next year. If I get the courage, I might let the torts stay out there for a portion of the summer. I'm just worried about people in my neighborhood (we have a crackhead neighbor and there are some bad kids the lurk around at night).

AlWAYS make observations.

I enjoy sitting on the bench at the tortoise pen (3 hermanns & an egyptian) in the mornings, watching them come out & warm up for the day. Some times it amazes me how soothing simply watching tortoises can be.
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They are such awesome creatures. I love watching them explore their enclosures, or even better, on sunny days when I'm sitting in the backyard, I let them out of their outdoor enclosure and they run around the yard.

I know I didn't get into tortoises for breeding. It's an interesting project that I think will be a lot of fun, but mostly I got into tortoises because they are a great reptile. Some people don't think they are very interesting, but that's usually because they don't supply the tortoises with the right things.

If I didn't have to go to college and work all the time, I could spend hours and hours just sitting and watching the tortoises go about their lives. It is very soothing. Tortoises seem so relaxed when they are basking and foraging. The ones that are accustomed to humans are especially relaxed. I can let them graze out in the backyard, and sometimes they will let me walk right up and watch them eat.