We had a list of name ideas for the tortoise, including Malala and Tally Ho, but I think we’ve settled on Pangea.
I’m still super excited about having her, but things got a little more complicated this week. I brought her in for her first vet checkup, expecting to ask a lot of questions and setup a baseline and relationship with the vet. But instead. the vet prodded her shell and inspected her underside and said that her shell was a bit too malleable and underside wasn’t quite right and so they gave her a vitamin injection and prescribed 60 days of calcium injections!!
It’s like she’s only a month and a half old….how can she already be deficient?! Well anyway I guess it’s good we brought her in. I do sprinkle calcium on her food every couple days and she has a cuttle bone too but it’s kind of tricky I think to get all the nutrition right and all the environmental factors can impact it (temp, humidity, sunlight, etc). I think once she lives in the yard it will be simpler.
They also looked at the stool sample I brought but they need to analyze more of them since tortoise poops vary and I need to bring several over a couple days.
I did ask about humidity and he was like ya well get a hygrometer and mister… which we realized later isn’t going to work as her container doesn’t have a cover. Rob may create one using PVC/plastic so we can up the humidity.
So basically I was shocked, but anyway on day 1, as a team, we successfully injected her calcium. It is hard to even access the proper place as the turtle will pull in the arms/legs and they are very strong. But Rob holds her while I inject. Day 2 didn’t go as well as I didn’t apparently get the needle in far enough and I don’t think the calcium made it in. Hopefully I will get better. It’s super hard because her skin is all loose and so hard to penetrate and tell if you even did it right (super super small). Anyhow.
I think we are supposed to go back in 3 weeks for a follow up. So.
Meanwhile, trying to grow grasses but something has raided them and the buffalo grass is still teeny and ultra-fine. I do feed her 1 hibiscus leaf a day as three African Hibiscus are coming up and doing well. I’ve tried various other things from the yard but mostly she doesn’t eat them like prickly pear pads (minus the spines), a couple of weeds, aloe, and today I tried rose petals and I’m not sure if she ate any or not. On the other hand, she IS eating the Timothy Hay which is HUGE since it is good for her and can just sit forever in pantry. I have fed her kale and stuff but you’re not supposed to give them too much of that. Oh and she’s had 2 blueberries and a teeny piece of mango, but those aren’t really that good for her.
Last night I had a dream where I was supposed to do some challenging indoor obstacle course while simultaneously holding a large tortoise tightly on my middle.
Zsa Zsa was broody FOREVER and I finally started to put her in an ice water bath for a few minutes each day. Finally, she stopped. But while she was broody, I’m guessing she was bossy and so the Americaunas started to lay their eggs not in the roosts but over in a corner of the coop. And they still are! The funny thing is that one day I went in there and there were both Isis and Sisi, sitting side-by-side, laying eggs in tandem! Cutest thing ever.
Matt still lays eggs occasionally, but the Hash Browns don’t lay anymore. I suppose they are too old.
Oh and we had Regi and Sean over for dinner one night which went really well. The dogs were even pretty well behaved for them!
So I have learned a little more about local weeds and plants as I’m trying to figure out what to feed Pangea. I may setup a lookup tool on this website for this purpose. Possibly. The Tortoise Table app is great for this but it is based in UK so doesn’t have many Texas plants.
Nessa is still guarding her eggs 24/7, except for once daily flying around honking and getting a treat from me. I asked the vet about this and he said I should just leave her eggs alone as she will soon enough figure out they are not fertile.
One day on a walk with Woody, a little friendly black loose dog joined us all the way home. We put him in our front yard and Rob called the owner whose number was on the dog’s tag. “America” stayed with us for probably an hour or so until the owner came to pick her up. During that time, we took advantage of the situation and let each of our dogs hang out with her (one at a time). It mostly went OK so that was kind of a cool socialization opportunity for them.
We got together with Louise & John at Meanwhile Brewing which was fun of course! I spilled my beer at one point which could have been terrible, but we just moved to another picnic table :)
There’s some kind of animal living under our deck and the dogs are obsessed. Actually mostly just Stony. And today we found that he had scratched and scratched at one place and tore up the wood a little! He had also tried digging under at one point. So not sure if we are going to try to take action at all and see what’s under there…
More pics below.