A sudden change in how your tortoise behaves may be concerning to you. A change may be something as small as your tortoise having trouble walking at night.
This article looks into why your tortoise is having trouble walking at night.
Table of Contents
Tortoise having trouble walking at night
Tortoises are a common pet to keep in homes, this is because these little animals are relatively low maintenance.
However, your pet may still develop issues that you’d need to address like why the animal is less active at night.
The nighttime is naturally a time that these animals are asleep but there are ways to get them more active.
Here is what you need to know about helping your tortoise walk more at night:
It is too cold:
Tortoises are cold-blooded and are thus affected by the environment in a big way. In winter when temperatures drop, these animals start to move less and they walk less.
In the summertime, when it is cooler at night, the amount of walking they do may decrease because they are colder and on their way to bed.
What to do:
If you want to keep your pet up and keep it from wanting to sleep then you should make your pet think that it is still a warm day out.
Do this by keeping the basking lamp in your pet’s enclosure on and keeping your pet’s room warm so it resembles a warm summer day.
Also, make sure that your pet’s enclosure is always warm and free from draughts.
Lighting:
Your pet tortoise is diurnal so it will be up during the day and asleep when it gets dark at night.
The science behind this is that your pet needs light for their metabolism to be stimulated so they can stay awake and walk around.
What to do:
You’ll have to add additional lights to the room that your pet is in to make the animal think that it is still the daytime.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other turtle/tortoise related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Tortoise Bleeding Leg, Baby Tortoise Leg Problems, Tortoise Cut On Leg, Turtle Bulging Out Of Shell, Red Spots On Turtle Belly, Algae Growing On Turtle Head, Adding Salt To A Turtle Tank, Wheat Germ Pellets For Turtles, How To Fix Retained Scutes