WELCOME TO MY WORLD

I think its about time I introduced you to Timmy and Tammy my tortoises, in the photo above Tammy is on the left with the darker shell, Timmy has the lighter coloured shell.

Timmy and Tammy are Hermann’s Tortoise’s (Testudo Hermanni); Hermann’s are a type of Mediterranean tortoise and usually live in dry warm areas of hilly scrubland, they grow to around 8 inches and can live for a considerable length of time, 80+ years is not uncommon, if Timmy and Tammy live a normal lifespan (for a tortoise), which of course they hopefully will, then they should outlive me by a fairly long time, unless of course I live a ridiculously long life (for a human), which I would think is highly unlikely, more information about Hermann’s tortoises can be found in the “Tortoise Care Sheet” on this site or on the “Tortoise Trust Web Site”.

I got Timmy on the 1^st September 2007 from a pet stall in the indoor market hall here in Barrow-in-Furness, just a baby his shell was just 6cm long and he weighed just 40 grams, all I know about him prior to him coming to me I got from his certificate.

It is illegal nowadays to take tortoises from the wild or to import them into this country without a certificate proving they were captive bred and bought legally into the country; Timmy has such a certificate which was given to me when I got him, according to his certificate he was captive born and bred and his country of origin is Slovenia, I don’t have an exact date of birth for him but his certificate was issued on the 27^th December 2006 and it says he was hatched in 2006, I’m guessing his certificate was signed quite soon after hatching so for want of a more exact date I’m treating the 27^th December as his official birthday (yes he has an official birthday) which means that his first birthday was 27^th December 2007. (Note – I would now like to point out that the Tortoise Trust advises against the buying of tortoises imported from Slovenia, this is for a number of reasons including possible disease and also due to the possibility of the animals actually being taken from the wild, I did not know about this when I bought my tortoises and would like to say here and now that if I had of known I would have made sure I bought tortoises bred by reputable breeders in this country. I appear to have been lucky as in my case there appears to be no disease present in Timmy and Tammy)

I really didn’t know at this point in time whether Timmy was male or female and I also knew that when they are tiny its extremely difficult to tell them apart but I just decided to call him Timmy and that he was therefore a male.

When I first got Timmy he was sold to me with a vivarium and I knew no better so for a short while he lived in this viv, then after a bit of research online I discovered that this was unsuitable for him, it being far too enclosed, not enough variation in temperatures, not enough air flow and too humid. The indoor habitat of choice for Mediterranean tortoises is a tortoise table, essentially an open topped enclosure giving plenty of natural air flow and room to move around and find varying temperatures, so I promptly bought him a 3 foot x 3 foot plastic sided version of tortoise table.

I have supplied him with a basking lamp for heat and a UV tube for sun light, his habitat has a piece of slate under his basking light to help wear down his claws, an artificial cactus (just as décor), a log tunnel, his food dish and water dish, I have recently read on the tortoise trust web site that they do not recommend hemp sub-strata as they have found problems due to the spiky nature of the small pieces of hemp, they recommend a soil / sand mix for the sub-strata so I have changed to soil / sand as my tortoises sub-strata.

Timmy has so far lived inside my house in his table rather than being outside and will do for a while yet, he is only very small and would get cold very easy outside in our weather plus I only have a small concrete yard rather than a garden, also I do have a problem with cats coming into my yard and even sea gulls so being small he could be in danger, added to that of course he could get stolen (tortoises do often get stolen). He may eventually go outside during the summer months (I would have to create some kind of protected enclosure) and only live inside during colder spells but then again because of the issues mentioned earlier regarding my back yard he may very well remain indoors indefinitely, or perhaps until I win enough money on the lottery to get a new house with a large garden.

By the end of March / beginning of April 2008 I knew I had a problem with Timmy, although he was still active and eating he was having trouble opening his eyes, he seemed ok otherwise so I thought perhaps this was something to do with winter and shorter days but then his eyelids were swelling up and eventually he developed a crusty growth over them and I knew it was time for him to visit the vet.

I booked him into the “Alexander Veterinary Centre” for an examination, the vet looked at him and studied my husbandry details, she seemed happy with how he was being cared for, which was nice to know, and the only thing she could think of that might cause this was a vitamin “A” deficiency. She bathed his eyes and gave him an antibiotic injection, gave me some antibiotic cream and some artificial tears gel to bathe his eyes and sent me home with an appointment for a week later.

The better of the two eyes cleared up nicely but the worse one didn’t so the vet took him in for a day to remove the growth, which she felt was an abscess, the eye underneath appeared ok and my job was to keep bathing his eyes to try to encourage them to remain open, while Timmy was with the vet I asked if she could sex him, she said it wasn’t certain at this size but she also thinks he is a little boy, she also said he is a tolerant and tough little soul.

Then there was a major turn of events, Jonathan was having problems with his two dragons including loss of appetite, hiding away, sluggishness and closed eyes, he did some research online and discovered a newly discovered issue with certain UV tubes, mainly desert high UVB type tubes which apparently don’t have the correct balance of UVA and UVB light waves and can cause problems with non desert type reptiles of exactly the type of symptoms displayed by his dragons and Timmy’s eye problem.

On further investigation we discovered that the type of tube we were using are amongst those causing the problems (EXO-TERRA Repti-Glo 10.0), we took details of this discovery to the vet and she said it explained both our problems perfectly. We have removed these offending UV tubes and ordered new ones known to be safe (Arcadia D3) to replace them, I am still bathing Timmy’s eyes daily and they are looking a lot better, he is also a lot more active and feeding very well, in fact better than ever, technical details can be found here about this issue “http://www.uvguide.co.uk/phototherapyphosphor.htm”.

It is many months since I had these problems and changed which UV tube I use for my tortoise table and the problem completely cleared up and has shown no sign of returning, I therefore believe that the issue was with the incorrect tube and has now been fixed.

On Saturday 6th September 2008 I got a second baby Hermann’s Tortoise, I’ve been thinking for some time of getting another so Timmy has a little friend, well I took the plunge, of course I don’t really know Timmy’s sex for certain, it’s too early to tell and of course I don’t know the sex of the new one but have decided to call her Tammy, so I now have Timmy and Tammy.

She is also a Hermann’s Tortoise (Testudo Hermanni) and like Timmy she hails from Slovenia, she has a darker patterned shell than Timmy and is a little bigger so they are easy to tell apart, although she is a little bigger Timmy is a little heavier, I weighed them both shortly after getting Tammy, Timmy was 52 grams while Tammy was 44 grams.

Timmy was hatched in 2006 and I set his birthday for his certified date of the 27th December, he is therefore officially 1 year 8 months old approximately, Tammy was hatched in 2007 and I have set her birthday for her certified date of 4th June, she is 1 year 3 months old then.

10th October 2008 and I’ve had Tammy for a little over a month now, when I got her I was told she was an active little tortoise but ate very little, since I got her and placed her in my tortoise table she has eaten well and I am certain has already put on quite a bit of weight, she is looking well. Also when I first got her she tended to sleep in the corner of the table on the surface, a bit like a dunce standing in the corner, since then she has taken Timmy’s lead and now always sleeps buried in the sub-strata just like Timmy.

 I have made the decision that for now at least I will be overwintering my tortoises rather than hibernating them, this is partly to do with the fact that I’m quite worried about the thought of hibernating them but also because having read a bit about overwintering I believe this can be a viable alternative to hibernation. Timmy and Tammy live indoors all year round anyway so its not like I’d need to set up winter quarters for them, for more info regarding my decision please see the post “Overwintering Tortoises”.