Room Service

Since it has been getting colder, I've worked on getting Frankie more comfortable in the gecko room. He has his own area -- sectioned off when we are not around but when I am downstairs he can roam everywhere. He has his box full of paper to sleep in at night with a heater underneath. Now I have set up an overhead heater for him to sit under during the day.

Frankie has never really had an overhead heater. Most of his overhead heat has been sunlight and halogen lights. He saw where the heat was and would go under light sources. This new heater is a ceramic heater. He can't see that there will be heat under it -- he has to feel it. So, I had to train him to go under it.

I would turn it on (had to heat it up first) and then I would put him under it but on top of a plastic lid. I did this over and over until he would see the plastic lid and could figure out that if he sat there he would feel the heat from above. Took a week for him to figure this out.

Now I can't get Frankie out of the gecko room. He has his nice comfy box to sleep, a nice hot heat lamp to sit under and Leann will bring him grass and weeds. So now when I try to get him to go outside, he takes one look and turns back around! Yesterday it was 62ºF, sunny, no wind and perfect for a good bask. He stopped five feet past the door, sat for five minutes and went back inside under his nice hot lamp. So I put him on his wagon and pulled him into the yard and sat him in the sun. Fifteen minutes later and I find him in his outdoor enclosure going to sleep! I opened his outdoor enclosure and he promply came out and went into the house and under his nice hot heat lamp.

He will not graze outside! He is waiting for me to bring him some food!

Well, I am on strike! No more food, buddy. Get warm and sit there until you get hungry enough to go outside and eat. If it is warm I am not bringing any more chow!

Frankie waiting for chow.

Dirt Bag

This weekend, I picked up a bag of organic top soil for the box turtles. I put it into a tall plastic enclosure (its a cat box that has extra high sides to it) and filled it half up with the dirt. I put the turtles in. They sat there as if to say "what the heck is this?" "It's dirt you dummies, now dig in and make yourselves comfortable." They continued to sit there. So much for bright ideas. Then the exodus from the box began.

The baby turtle loves his enclosure of dirt. He is always digging around. He sleeps under the dirt and in the morning, sticks his head out to see what is happening. The big box turtles like doing this outside so what is the big deal with their new box of dirt?

Soooo, I went outside and gathered some leaves (damp to wet because it rained last night). I placed the leaves on top of the box turtles. Now this should make them more at home. Okay, so Mama Turtle seemed to accept it, Big Turtle took more time, but Brown Eyes completely rebelled. She wasn't going to sit in any dirt. I put her back inside three times. I had to take her feet of the sides more than that. She kept climbing over both the other turtles. It was hours before she surrendered to the dirt.

Come on, turts. This it like taking a prisoner from a cell where they had to sleep on a metal bed and putting him in a cell with a bed roll - he is not going to turn down the bed roll. It feels better. Doesn't it? I mean I bought organic dirt!
(In the picture below, there are two turtles barely visible at 1:00 and one turtle at 8:00 --the two at 1:00 are barely visible but different color than leaves)

Amazing Aggression

Frankie is doing better. Amazing what increased temperatures will do for a sulcata. He has stayed inside each night. Every morning I plug in his hot pad and he gets warmed up. For the night he was feeling the worse, the pad was on all night. Being inside means I have lots of sulcata poop and pee to clean but such sacrifices are okay if we get rain in return.

Last night, we took Frankie to our local PetSmart for their in store pet costume contest. No one has called us since last night so it looks as if he didn't get a prize - big surprise to me since I didn't see anything that looked near as good or cool as Frankie in his pumpkin costume. I got a pic of Frankie and me. I look cute and so does Frankie.

Strange thing happen while we were at Pet Smart.

Frankie has never given much interest in any dog. Usually he ignores them. There must have been 30 dogs around him.  But he came across this adult short hair golden retriever and decided this dog needed his butt kicked.  Frankie got real aggressive. Frankie kept "running" at the dog.  At one point Frankie stood real tall on his front feet as if to make himself look bigger than the dog (I thought Frankie was getting ready to "show his penis" as this is the stance he usually takes when he does). I had to get between dog and tortoise. 

When the dog was out of sight Frankie returned to his usual self. His behavior in front of the dog was the most aggressive I have ever seen Frankie.

I have no idea what made Frankie decided to pick a fight.  





Oh, it was cold out last night...45 degrees...box turtles were inside.