Quote:
Originally Posted by helen234
Vivs work well...if used properly...but then so does everything.
The reason that people try to dissuade new keepers/inexperienced keepers is because they can be potentially dangerous if the correct information re temps etc etc is not adhered to.
For instance...I have a male THB who had problems when he came to me because he was kept for 4 yrs in a viv...not in itself necessarily a problem...however the substrate was astroturf...he was fed cucumber and tomato...he had a water bowl sat on top of the astroturf which he spilled daily and it wasnt cleaned up...he had a heatmat on 24/7 a ceramic heater 24/7 and a worn out uvb..which was never on and the viv/cabinet was very very small...when I got to the house he was pacing and knocking on the glass constantly...there was nothing in there to provide him with any activity or break up the line of sight.....he was never got out of it.
Problems - His shell was covered in algae and it stunk...as did his cabinet I had to drive 60 miles with my windows open. I scrubbed him with a nail brush when I got home and it took an hour to get the green slime off...the cabinet took days to clean.
- He was stir crazy.....his behaviour was bizarre.
- His nails needed trimming
- His beak was very long
- He was slightly bumpy.
To quarantine him I put him in another viv...well set out and much much larger...within the day he was calmer...a trip to the vets for a check up and his beak and nails were trimmed.
This was in feb 2007.
He spent the whole miserable wet summer outside.
In august I put him with some of his own age...he bit them constantly...I then put him with some who were older...and larger...he stopped biting them!!! I wondered if he would ever be able to be mixed with a group of his own age,
The answer is yes...he came out of hibernation and he has forgotten he ever bit!! He managed 16 weeks and he is well. He is in a temp table until he goes out for the year again.
The point of all this??? vivs are only bad if misused...I find tables albeit temporary ones easier...but I will not stand up and lie and say vivs are all bad. |
My point entirely, all those problems could just have easily been caused by keeping a Tortoise in an undersized table under those conditions.
I rarely advise people on which methods they should adopt, I only state what works for me.
We should be more flexible to other peoples approach to the hobby, ignore the urban myths that have been perpetuated by some and resist the bullying tactics if you dare to deviate from what some people see as the only way of doing things, this is the way forward for this and any other hobby. There has been a lot of progress made during the last thirty years, but just imagine if Tortoise keepers in the 1960s and 70's had been adamant that only their way was the correct way. We'd still be burying thousands of these animals every year and looking forward to the new supplies hitting the pet shops the following year so that we could repeat our mistakes.
24-02-2008, 09:42 PM
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