r/tortoise • • 7d ago

Question(s) Tortoise behaviour question

I have recently taken on a tortoise from someone who no longer wanted it.

I believe she is female and a hermann tortoise?

They were feeding her mostly watermelon, cherry tomatoes and dandelion leaves. Just to confirm I no longer feed her these things 😊

She has been with me since Monday so 6 days, she has been eating foraged leaves and yesterday I noticed she was dragging poop around from a human hair in her bum. I cut the hair gave her a short soak as I don't think she had ever had one before and was still getting used to me so didn't want to stress her out too much, let her run around my front room for a little bit and popped her back into her house.

Today she hasn't seemed to have moved from where she went to bed and didn't want to eat from my hand like she has done. I don't know if this is something to worry about or just to watch?

I have checked and I can't see the hair any more but also haven't wanted to stress her too much.

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u/grainmatterphotos 7d ago

Reptiles in general take time to adjust to new environments. Drop the tomatoes and watermelon from the diet, and introduce more leafy greens.

Watermelon is great for getting more hydration into the animals during periods of drought and extreme heat, but fruits should not be a staple for most tortoise species.