The Masked Shadows Desert Tortoise Growout Thread

The Masked Shadow

Redtail Catfish
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This is 100% true. Rocket, my dog, is training to find them, since the tortoises escape so much. I ask “tortoise” to him, and he darts off, looking for them. When he finds them, he paws at them, and goes crazy. I give him a treat, and everyone is happy. I don’t know if any other dogs can do that. He really loves discipline, especially “find it”, and I’ve been training a lot. It took him a week to master. Now I need him to bark when he finds one. He just needs to do “Speak” as well.

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The Masked Shadow

Redtail Catfish
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We are getting both of them checkups before we put them into hibernation. They usually go in a few weeks before Thanksgiving.
 
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Deadeye

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You have to induce the hibernation?
I guess you just have to put them in a cooler enclosure?
 
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The Masked Shadow

Redtail Catfish
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Around this time of year, they will slow down in metabolism, and not eat as much, preparing for hibernation. However, if they have a Vitamin or Calcium deficiency, they may not make it through hibernation. So we always get them checked out, and give them Calcium shots. i made a little 12" cube made from cement bricks, which keeps the temperature cool during hot days, and overall insulates during cold nights. I put food in their weekly, as a few times every hibernation they will wake up and find food in the wild. I try to do my best to replicate the wild, but just digging a hole in the ground and sticking them in their isn't safe for them, as their are Coyotes, Ravens, and more that would try to eat them, and probably would. And at their size, they are vulnerable to everything. The little cement hut is in the garage, where it is shady all the time. There is a layer of dirt on the bottom and I smooth the edges of the cement with dirt as well to make it just like the wild.

Right now, they are in the process of digging a burrow for hibernation, which is what they would do in the wild. These tortoises are very much wild. The grandparents where wild, which makes them of the F2 variety, if you are talking wild cat domestication.
 
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Deadeye

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Turtles are always in the water. Tortoises are on land. But same difference.
To add, the only true turtles are sea turtles. The others are terrapins. I’m pretty sure the feet and shell is how you tell terrapins and tortoises apart (besides the water affinity for most terrapins). Then there’s box turtles which are terrapins but so much like tortoises.
 
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