My dirty little tortoise

Linds · 08-27-02, 09:40 AM

OK, so my tortoise makes life alot easier for me. I never have to clean up his cage after him because he eats his poop before I can get to it

. Even when he's outside walkign aorund if he poops he turns around to eat it. Any thoughts on this?

SilverTongue · 08-27-02, 09:56 AM

umm is he part puppy???

Demelo Kidd · 08-27-02, 10:36 AM

at least he doesnt poop in his water dish eeevery single time you change it
How old is it

Linds · 08-27-02, 01:11 PM

LOL...yup that's the first thing he does when I change his water

. Climbs right in and makes a mess, silly little tortie. He's about 6 months old we figure. He even eats the poop right out of his water dish. He also drags all the peat moss into his bowl. I am constantly changing his water and the moment I put fresh water in he climbs back in...lol

snakedude_03 · 08-28-02, 12:36 AM

haha.. how nice.. it eats it's own.. stuff.. lol

08-28-02, 04:25 AM

on a serious note two things I can think of is a) possibly an instinctive behavior to build intestinal bacteria
b) possibly a digestive problem that allows too much undigested food material pass through and this is sensed by the animal and the semi-digested food is put through another pass lol
Get a couple of idle thoughts
Sterling

corr · 08-28-02, 04:51 AM

Get him a blue box and kindly tell him that there are more polite ways to recycle.

Big Mike · 08-28-02, 08:40 AM

I saw this behavior on the Discovery channel with gorillas of all things. This gorilla just ***** in his hand and then ate it like a piece of fruit. They thought it might be because the food in that area was tough to break down so could be digested again. They also said that maybe it was just a warm meal on a cold day...lol

Jaylyn · 08-28-02, 09:52 AM

Linds,

He is precious!

I think Sterling's right - they eat it to build-up/maintain intestinal gut flora. Mine do it on a fairly regular basis ... though not as often as your little guy (I've seen them racing for that piece of poop). Maybe review his diet - I'm not sure .... is he over/undereating?

To help keep down on the peat moss in the water ... I use a base of 60% sand and 40% sand, then cover it with an inch or so of spaghnum moss (the green mossy kind) - you can really lay the water to the spaghnum and they bury in it to create a microclimate of humidity. I keep their water on the opposite end of their heat source - so by the time they've walked over to the water dish they've brushed off most of the dirt. It works well for me with the spaghnum b/c I have four little ones and otherwise it would be impossible for to keep the water dish clean for very long.

Hope that helps some???

Jaylyn

Linds · 08-28-02, 10:55 AM

Thanks for the input everyone!

Jaylyn,
Thanks alot for all that info. Glad to know that mine isn't the only one that does this