Tortoise awakens from hibernation

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As the thread title, the little fella started shuffling around Easter Sunday and today his up to all of his old tricks. Anyone else have these shelled wonders as pets?

[Defcon5]

My mum has one, that I will undoubtedly inherit in 30 years time.

A Hermann I think? No idea how old she is though, measures about 6in from head to tail.

[bexVN]

Ahh, you mean awakens. Glad about that I thought you had a tortoise that had woken up in a weakened state.

I like tortoises, fascinating animal.

[t400ble]

I thought the same

[Big Al.]

So did I, so title tweaked.

[nellystew]

I had 2 Hermans, but 1 died (more below!)

They lived the first 12 years in a viv, and put in the garden for a daily walk in the summer.
We then decided that they could spend the whole summer in the garden and then we put them back into the viv for winter.
This worked for a couple of years but then 1 year we had an Indian summer, so we left them out longer, then when we went to find them they'd disappeared and hibernated themselves!

They appeared in the spring looking a lot bigger, so we left them out all year round since then, and each spring they were bigger and bigger.

They them mated and the female laid eggs every year for about 4 years, we tried leaving them in the soil and using an incubator, but they never hatched

This time last year they dug themselves out and then normally wander off into the bushes to wake up, but a couple of days later we couldn't find the female, we eventually found she'd fell into the pond!
She was just alive, but died the next day

The male appeared last week and he's sunning himself when he can, now he just wanders around, instead of chasing her around.

[NordicCrankShaft]

Would absolutely love one but unfortunately it's illegal to own reptiles and amphibians here

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Big Al. said:

So did I, so title tweaked.

Thanks Big Al. Blame my new(ish) iPad..

Our shelled wonder is now fully awake but it's to cold for him to venture into the garden just yet. He sits by our back door staring at it, just like a dog, tortoise are not dumb creatures!
As soon as he is let loose the first thing he will do is check out all of his escape routes, just loves wandering into other people's gardens. Must think the grass is greener other side of fence.
Not sure but I believe it is this year that we are obliged to have the vet microchip him, his about 4 years old, the tortoise that is.
Back in the day (1960's) my wife to be used to lovingly apply baby oil to the shell of her tortoise, we now understand that is a definite no no.

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NordicCrankShaft said:

Would absolutely love one but unfortunately it's illegal to own reptiles and amphibians here

Crickey! That seems a bit harsh.
UK we are not permitted to import tortoise, only those that have been bred in captivity and certificated as such are permitted to be sold. We must keep our certificate and soon will microchip (Splodge) our tortoise as required. If the little chap is ever sold on the certificate must be produced and correspond with his electronic tag!