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Dear Tad, I'm a busy tortoise with important browsing to do but now it's too hot to go out in the afternoons. Some days all I want to do is sleep. What's wrong with me? -Hot in Henderson Hot, You're probably fine. It's a bit toastier outside than usual for June but you'll be ok. Remember when it got cold and you brumated all winter in your burrow? You protected your body from the cold and conserved resources by slowing down and sleeping. In the summer you can estivate in that same burrow … [Read more...] about Dear Tad – it’s hot out

Offer Grassland Tortoise Food regularly during this eating season---before it gets hot.  It's growing and egg-producing time and tortoises need a healthy, well-balanced diet. … [Read more...] about Good Nutrition is Essential to Good Health

Please! Please! Please do not kill our beautiful, big, black carpenter bees. They are very valuable pollinators and bee numbers are down, dramatically. Bees are needed for pollinating crops and other fruits important to other animals. When bees are working at flowers they are intent on just that, even the Africanized Honey Bees. Only when you get near their nests are they apt to feel that they have to defend themselves. Carpenter bees may seem curious and come near you momentarily, but I … [Read more...] about Black Carpenter Bees

What is that white stuff passed by my tortoise? Chances are its just urate salts that are occasionally part of the urine. It looks like curdled milk or bits of chalk. This is a good thing. Be glad your tortoise is passing them and not forming a bladder stone that might require surgery. Just wash these deposits into the grass or around plants. They help your garden grow. It is always a good idea to encourage your tortoises to drink. It seems that some don't drink until it rains--the natural … [Read more...] about Urate Salts in Urine

A wonderful place for the spiders to hang out and eat the cockroaches that also live there, feasting on tortoise scats commonly dropped right there. Black widows are one of the common occupants of wild tortoise burrows. They are timid, and if you try to swat one you will see how very fast they retreat at the slightest vibration of the web. If you put your hand in a tortoise burrow, watch out for the spider that may be hanging near the roof. If given half a chance, it will escape instead of … [Read more...] about Black Widow spiders in your tortoise burrows!