hello i have two horsefield tortoises approx 4 yrs old. over the winter they were alert and hungry,i have put them out now on nice days so i dont know exactly what theyre eating i have a patch of tortoise food growing but never catch them eating.They dont seem to be eating very much at all also when i put food in there indoor enclosure they dont eat it.they have been  alert and active though when outside but just sleep when inside getting out of the heat lamp.one of them this week just has slept burried in the garden not walking at all,i moved him on to the path and he moved very slowly,i have also noticed that theyre not weeing or pooing in the bath and they always used to,the lively one has pooed but i  dont know about thesleepy one i cant see any visible problems what do you think? shelly

Hi

We had a similar problem and my advice is to take the tortoise(s) to a vets. As a precaution ours was given an antibiotic shot but the vet thought that the illness more probably came from something it ate.

As it happens ours was slyly munching away on poppy leaves in the garden. When I checked up on this I found that our variety of poppy was the only one not to kill a tortoise but they were only supposed to eat it in very limited quantities.

Far from knowing what is good for them, they seem to want to have a chew at most things so we are very careful these days and he has a very defined run.

We kept Percy inside for a month and fed him on a very bland diet and bathed him daily. He seemed to want heat and he snuggled day after day close to his heat lamp. He only drank when we bathed him. It really did take a month before we noticed any improvement but now he is back to his old self.

For us newbies, a change in behaviour (ie being sleepy and dragging themselves round) was the best indication that something was wrong. Take your tortoises to the vets is my advice!