First of all, a big applause to EJ (Ed) for his help in helping my oldest male (roughly 17 years of age) fight off an eye infection he developed a few months back. After a few days, his eye got much better and now is back to normal.
Unfortunately, 2 of my 3 tortoises (oldest male and female) still show signs of some clear, liquid discharge from the nostrils. The male shows it much more than the female. This has been going on now for years, but has not affected their overall health. I've been to the vet countless times but made no difference. :-/
As a side note, there is some good news. I've observed my female acting strangely the last week or 2. Besides being more active than usual, she's been showing signs of nesting. Today I found her a hole that was much larger than the previous ones she's done. Was hoping to see her lay an egg and perhaps catch it on video... however there was no egg today. I've recorded her behavior on video and will post below for all to see.
I keep all 3 of my tortoises in a 3' by 5' pen that I made. I separated the one male and the pair with a wall. The two males cannot be left together as they become territorial and start showing aggressive behaviors(biting head/forearms and ramming of shells). The young male and female seem to get along well together, but I've caught the female trying to bite the head of the male when there was little food left. Possible sign of jealousy/greed or she REALLY needed more food as we're suspecting she'll be laying an egg soon.
All three have great appetites, and will clean out their plates in a matter of minutes. Very rarely will you find any left overs. I'm not a breeder or an expert on raising tortoises, but I've owned my oldest male now since 1997. One thing that I noticed is they almost never drink any liquid out of their water dishes. I either have to wet their food or give them a weekly soaking to ensure they're hydrated.
As for the pen, I tried to mimic a desert environment. I use play-sand substrate and some aquarium stones here and there. When the pen was freshly prepared, it had dunes where they would exercise going up and down. Above the pen, I have a long UVB bulb and heat lamps. I added some little cacti in the enclosure as decorative pieces... they show no interest in eating them so its fine.
