Avid Reader of the newspaper...I mean eater

Its the time of the year when Frankie ends up spending a lot of time inside. He sleeps inside every night. Sometime around 11:00 am, when it is warm enough he is allowed to make a choice to go outside to bask and eat. Compared to the time he spends outside during the summer, he spends very little time outside during the winter. A lucky day would be three hours. On average, Frankie gets out about 1 hour. Hardly enough to keep "a serious walker" happy. And Frankie is one serious walker.

I have done my best to provide him a walking area in the gecko room. He has a bit of an obstacle course that includes stepping up into a shelf, walking under a couple of chairs and making a full circle in the gecko room. When possible he is allowed to walk in the garage when our Prius is not there. I don't allow him there alone due to too many hazards. The gecko room and garage is not much in the way of walking space but its the best I can do.

The other challenge is Frankie's refusal to eat hay. I have tried year after year to get him to eat it and yes, I have tried every trick in the book. The best we have achieved is for him to eat a mix of 25% hay mixed with weeds, grass, carrots, and hibiscus flowers or any other allowable sulcata food (sorry folks - NO NO NO commercial food. And I don't care what commercial food sellers say. Its like saying that coal is a clean fuel and hydrogenated oils are good for you. Give me a break.

Frankie gets hungry. He can't go outside. So his newspaper that is in his night enclosure starts looking good. How do I know? Well besides catching him munching down on newspaper his poop is different when he eats newspaper. It is hard to miss if you are a sulcata poop observer. How to keep Frankie from eating his newspaper?

The solution is so simple: Hay. If Frankie were just not so stubborn he could be fat eating hay. But no, he would rather be an avid eater of newspaper.

Shopaholic

While we were away last week we were notified that Frankie won the national You Pet Halloween pet costume contest. He is getting a $100 gift card from PetCo. So, from Halloween pet contests this year he has won $100 from You Pet, $25 from AARP and $5 from PetSmart. Now that is a tortoise earning his keep!

Frankie got to go to Petco on Saturday -- we didn't have his gift card yet but he got to roam the store for an hour and a half so I figured he had plenty of time to look around. Frankie did have his eye on a few items. I think he is planning on getting a customized pet tag to attach to his shell. He also spent some time looking at a extra large Dogloo and the heated dog beds.

On Sunday Frankie went to PetSmart to have a look around with his $30 in prize gift cards. He picked out a bag of Botanical Hay from the Oxbow Company. I put a bag of timothy hay, orchid hay and this botanical hay in front of him and he picked out the botanical hay by going over and nipping on the bag. Since he did the choosing I figure that was a good sign since he usually refuses to eat hay. Frankie also picked out a nice cuttle bone for himself (yep, we are buying him a BIG bulk of cuttle bone this week). Being the generous tortoise he is, he bought the water dragon a big tub to soak in and some tuna for the two cats.

I think Frankie is getting into this shopping thing. I better come up with a really good costume next year if he is going to become a shopaholic.

Oh yea, we weight Frankie and he is 56 pounds.

Home Again

Greg and I were out on vacation last week. Frankie and the turtle gang were left in the care of a friend, Brian, who is a very competent reptile keeper. Frankie was more than glad to start the week out with a BIG challenge. Since it was cold, Frankie had to stay inside. The first morning he peed all over the floor and deposited a fair amount of poop on top of that. Then he walked through it for about five hours so when Brian arrived to take care of everyone he had one big mess to clean up. I guess you could say it was trial by "sulcata." Obviously, Brian passed the test.

When we got home, Frankie had been inside all day so he repeated his pee and poop routine so I had the same mess to clean up. Frankie is so thoughtful!

After five days of being stuck inside because the weather was poor Frankie was ready to get out. Since it was too cold to get him out on Saturday I took him for his first winter visit to Petco. He sure did love it. He started with a ten minute bask by their big front glass windows and then proceeded to walk all over the store for an hour and a half. Frankie really needed to do some walking!

When I got Frankie home I put him outside even though it was a bit cool. He really needed to graze. After a couple of hours outside grazing he was ready to get inside and sleep.

Its good to be home and back with Frankie and the gang.