Next time you step into a pet store to get little Johnny a new critter, you will be faced with an additional 33 options courtesy of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Well it is. But unfortunately there are a multitude of sources of information giving conflicting advice, a bewildering array of equipment and housing options commercially available, and an unfortunate trend in the reptile hobby of keeping animals in conditions which allow them to survive with minimal effort or expense.
In many respiratory cases, and reptiles that are ‘generally unwell’ with vague signs of illness I will often ask for a faecal sample to screen for parasites, particularly where there is a history of a new animal, wild caught individual, a large collection with several cases of illness, lack of adequate quarantine or failure of initial treatment.
Perhaps controversially, I would suggest that if we want to keep and raise healthy animals we as responsible herpetoculturists need to redirect the hobby away from large scale reptile production of highly valuable, in some cases highly inbred genetic mutants kept in entirely inappropriate conditions to maintain long term health, the current royal python craze being a prime example.
During this time it is advisable to gradually reduce feeding and stop altogether approximately two to four weeks before hibernation proper depending on the size of your tortoise, with larger specimens needing longer to empty their digestive systems than smaller animals.
When researching your pet before you decide if you can care for it, ignore the ‘experts’ online shouting prescriptive lists of how to keep the species in question, unless they are shouting lists of scientific tangible information on the specific conditions needed and offering advice on how best to replicate those conditions.