Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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

I keep my Cherry Head in a 75 gal virvarium. I have a heat emitter on one side and a long tube 10.0 UVB on the other side. At night I shut off the UVB. On the hot side with the emitter, it usually reads 87 - 89 and on the cool side it reads 79 - 80. The humidity says at aroung 80.
He is 3 in. and 7 months old. He comes out in the AM and eats, then goes on the cool side after walking around a bit. He stays under a plant until around 4 or 5 and then comes out and finishes his food.....takes a drink....walks around a bit and then goes into his hide for the night. I don't know if he comes out during the night, but in the AM when I put his food in he comes out of the hide on the hot side where he went into the night before. I could watch him for hours. I tried to create an interesting environment for him so he wouldn't be bored. I made it like a little rain forest...which also helps keep in the humidity.

Hello,
My redfoots(and other torts)seem to prefer "Lightless" heat at night. It might not be bothering you guy, but mine all tend to shun any light source when they want to settle in and sleep. It's probably not the best thing for them to not have a real dark enclosure at night. Red light is still visibly pretty bright.
A.T.

Yep! Think of the forest floor in Brizal. Dark. Even during the day, the only light that shines from the sun comes through the tall trees. Not much sunshine down there.
http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/trophab.html

My Yellow Foots sleep all night - I do not have a hide, but plants that they crawl under - and they sort of pull their heads in and start snoring. I have found they go to sleep at the same time every day and and are most active in the mornings and at night when I feed them.

the popular "cherryhead" redfoots are apparently coming out of the southeastern Brazilian state of Bahia, a dry and more open desert scrub area, not deep forest

.How would I know where mine came from? I have him in a tropical environment with lots of humidity. This is the care I was told to give him from the breeder. He said tropical, humid forest floor

would not suggest going against advice from breeder, but some "cherryheads" are being imported from tortoise farms in Brazil - look up Santa Rita tortoise farm in particular -
that location implies a more seasonally changing type habitat