hello all im new on here i have a horsefield tortoise male unsure of age weighs just under 400gms and is roughly 5-6 inch long and about 4ish wide  hes very cute bit mean sumtimes though as we have only recently took him in as was being mistreat by a friend of families partner will post pics im from norfolk uk btw,

Hi there we are a friendly bunch on here and quite a few of us, me included, keep horsfields.  They have such amazing characters.  Your little feller does look cute, but can you tell us how old he is, and if he is your first tortoise tell us how you are looking after him.  We'll help point you in the right direction if there is any thing you are doing that needs changing.  It's sad to hear he has been mistreated by his previous owner.  Is there a story you can tell us about him?

In the meantime, if you haven't found it already, look on the left hand side links of this website and click on 'The Tortoise'.  In that section you will be able to click on the links for care sheets and you'll find the one on Horsfield tortoises.

Good on you for taking over his care and any questions you have just fire away.

Helen

Just wanted to say  . Hope you enjoy the site and feel free to ask away if there is ANYTHING you are unsure about. Cute tortoise!

Elaine

hello all thanks for quick replies,

he is about 10 years old i think and he was starved for a while i think by previous owner as when ever anyone aw him at her house he was covered up if they looked under or she actually had the cloth off he never had any food,

also he was very dirty and looked very discusting as i dont think he ever had a bath previous to us, also he was brough upon pellets for the last year that she had him and has lived in a vivarium all his life with a uv light and bark chips and a wooden roll hide, im very aware this is not an ideal set up for him the size is 3 foot by 1.1/2 foot and 1.1/2 high,

we have since started feeding him on mixed salads which dont contain iceberg lettuce or spinnach and have not given him the pellets since, as they were all he was eating hes now started eating most leaves we give him and also grass and hay and panseys/violas aand dandelions,

i intend to build him an indoor tortoise table however am not too good with diy stuff and would like to find a guide on measurements ect. or plans on building one if anyone knows of any??

also a few problems weve noticed with him so far are the shell has gaps in it and is slightly raised from cracks and underneath it is not smoothe but very dented all dents are pretty small however there are a lot and scrapes ect. also have recently noticed he always dragg his underside when he walks and if he does lift it off the ground he bangs it back down in between strides.

were very worried about him and have an appointment at local vets for a consultation this evening 5.55pm so hopefully we shall know by then but if anyone else can help please reply...

many thanks

Hiya

Thank you for telling us you tortoise's story.  What a distressing life he appears to have had before he found you.  I'm so pleased to hear that you have obviously done some research and are going to improve his environment his life can only get better from now on.

If he is on a heat pad - throw it away.  Your picture of him seems to show the plastron (underneath shell) as larger than the carapace (top shell) and this along with appalling diet could be a contributing factor.

Until you get your tortoise table made could you not turn the vivarium onto its side and place it on the floor.  Arrange a basking lamp within it and cordon off an area that your tortoise can exercise in and happily go back into the viv to warm up.  He needs to have an area where he can bury down to thermoregulate.  Lack of exercise and poor muscle tone could be a reason your tortoise cannot carry his own weight.  Given time and plenty of exercise you might see some improvement.

Here is a link to a design for a tortoise table, but in my opinion you don't need the perspex:  http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/Tortoisetable.htm . Alternatively you could buy a cheap bookcase, remove the shelves and turn it on its back.  Line it with pond liner or something similar and use organic top soil and play sand in a 50/50 mix for substrate.  Bark chippings can be lethal to tortoises.

Let us see some close up pictures of his shell, but it does sound like overgrowth to me.  If you buy a soft toothbrush and some Tamodine (available on line) you could use a weak solution of it to gently scrub his shell when you bathe him.

If your local vet is not a reptile specialist if he offers to give your tortoise an injection  to improve his health please ensure it is not vitamin A.  This used to be standard treatment, but it is now known that it can be lethal for tortoises and should only ever be given if there is a definite vitamin A deficiency which can only be discovered through a blood test.

If your tortoise passes any faeces before you go to the vet collect it and put it in a clean container and ask him to test it for worms.  The modern treatment is oral panacur given on a piece of tasty lettuce or dandelion, if worms or eggs are found.  Not tube given as it will be very distressing for a new tortoise and not injections of invermectin (which again are now known to be lethal for tortoises).

Hope this helps a little and good luck with your little fella I could cry for him.  You are so doing all the right things to help him.

Helen

hello thanks for the sharp reply got vets in 2 n half hours heres some more pics closer up of him and better quality had to shrink them a little though, we are making him a table tomorrow and are doing as you advised with the viv and light in the meantime however he does have the run of the hallway to himself most of the time as we have a ramp for him to go inside and outside the viv as he does seem to like moving about a lot and obviously hasnt done it alot in the past, please look at the pictures and let me know if this helps at all to further suggest us on getting him healthier

Hiya

I was wondering how you got on at the vets? The suture lines, between the scutes (plates) on top of the shell look like lines of rapid growth. You might be best to start monitoring your horsfield's weight gain and aim for him to put on no more than 2-3 gr per month.

Helen

hello all,

well went to vets last night and he was weighed digitally 400.1gms and he examined shell ect. skin eyes the scute?!(think thats the tail name) anyhow he said as weve only had hima matter of weeks he thinks hes looking pretty healthy apart from signs of damage ect to shell and his overall nervousness he said the shell is full hard which is a good sign as softspots are due to dampness and fungi infections ect. and he does not think he has any obvious infections or shellrot, also he showed me photos of what to look for in pooh samples under microscope between 40-100 times zoom and how to mix it and place it onto a sceen so i can look for myself for worms or eggs so getting some new screens in morning and checking his fecies :)

im not sure how knowledgable this vet bloke was/is but he seems to be quite sure of himself as im clueless abouit this atm he did also say about the diet ect. and putting himinto table which is being built atm and how weve done the right thing by putting him to veg/weeds ect and reccomended tortoise trust site to us :)

ccomments welcome...

Hiya

I hope you had a good Christmas and your tortoise is starting to settle in with you. 

The scutes are the name for the individual shell plates on the tortoise. 

Do you have your own microscope and if so have you managed to check a faeces sample from your tortoise yet?  I'm surprised the vet didn't do it for you.  If you go to the library section of this web site under the references section you will find a few books listed and there is one titled 'Understanding Reptile Parasites' which is very good if you are interested.

Weeds are good diet food but do keep off the vegetables for your tortoise.  Again if you look in the Links section of the web site you will find lots of links to on line sites with useful information on good and bad food for mediterranean tortoises.

The tortoise Trust site is very useful for finding out good information too.

Helen

Hi There,

Happy Christmas and all the best for 09

Just some words of support. I am a fellow horsfield keeper and I took on a horsfield which I had rehomed. Tilly had been kept in a cardboard box within an office, with no extra light or heat. She had been fed upon frozen peas all her life. Unfortunately, her companion died. Tilly belonged to my boss, and when she went on holiday to Las Vegas she asked me to look after her.

I didn't ever return Tilly to her life of hell and managed to persuade my boss to stick with the Gucci handbags and I would look after and love Tilly.

It took me ages to get her to eat, as she had gone on hunger strike and I refused to feed her the frozen peas. Her she was so fragile that you could really feel it moving up and down as she breathed.

My advice is stick with the good foods, I grow lots of young plants from seed in organic soil and the torts love digging and making a mess then eating the lovely young shoots.

Please do ask as many questions as you like no matter how silly that it may seem on the face of it. "You will certainly not be the first or the last"

The tort has landed in much better conditions as you want to do the best for him.

It is so sad when you hear stories of tortoises still being kept like this, sadly it's a lot more common than we think too.......so many old-fashioned and outdated stories of how to keep tortoises correctly.  Here is a example of a conversation I had only last week with one of the night shift guards at work.  I was finishing at 10pm and we were having a chat at the desk, it went like this.

Me:  I have to check my tortoises in the fridge when I get home.

Guard: WHAT !!  Why are your tortoises in the fridge.

Me:  They're hibernating

Guard:  You don't put tortoises in the fridge to hibernate them you idiot !!! You put them in the airing cupboard where it's warm !!  Anyway it's illegal to keep a tortoise !!  What do you feed them on??

Me: Weeds

Guard:  Weeds !!  You don't feed them weeds !! They eat peas and sweetcorn !!

Me:  Have you, or do you, own a tortoise?

Guard:  No

Me: Thank God !!!

Thank you for your input Becky, it's good to hear success stories :o))))

Jo

It is so hard to keep it zipped.

My next door but one neighbour has a female Spur Thigh. She insits that's it's a he, but it is definately a she. She is about 30 years old and has a hole drilled in her shell with some of that brightly coloured warning tape attached to her. Our "caring" neighbour feeds her dog food, eggs, bread and anything that she shouldn't really.

Freda (Fred) is currently hibernating in their old, non waterproof, non rodent free garage. I passed neighbour on street and enquired about Freda and polietly reminded them that it was minus 5oC last night and we have had some really cold weather. Neighbour said that she would wake her up on the 1st of May as usual. My thoughts were that if the mice haven't chewed her, Mr Frost Bite certainly would have.

Last summer was really wet as we all know. Freda was left out day and night with no shelter just her plate of dog food and bread. It breaks my heart, I've nearly pinched her on many occasions, but I do have to remind myself that I would probably get arrested.

Instead I sneak Freda some lovely weeds with nutrobal when they are not looking. Neighbour has already told me that if she gets weeds growing in her garden she will hold me responsible!!!!!!

I hope that they leave me Freda in their will, poor little thing, people are so blinkered when they want to be.