Symptoms of Hatchling Failure Syndrome
Sulcata Station too often receives frantic phone calls and emails from owners of hatchling or small sulcata tortoises, saying that their tortoise is ill. These owners almost always describe the same symptoms, as follows:
- Tortoise has stopped eating
- Tortoise has become lethargic and will not come out to bask
- Tortoise's eyes are closed and won't/can't open
- Tortoise spends hours (or even overnight) sitting in its water bowl
- Tort's shell is becoming softer, and its front legs are becoming limp and unresponsive
These symptoms indicate that the tortoise's kidneys are no longer functioning adequately. The typical reason why a tortoise goes into kidney failure is chronic dehydration. Small tortoises can become severely dehydrated overnight if kept in dry conditions without access to a scrape or burrow that allows them to maintain proper hydration status. Over time, if they do not get sufficient water back into their systems, they experience chronic dehydration, which can cause kidney failure.
Can it be treated?
The early stages of kidney failure can be treated successfully -- but only if detected very early. Treatment requires taking the tortoise to a reptile vet so it can receive IV and subcutaneous fluids to reverse the dehydration. The vet may also draw blood to measure creatinine and potassium levels. These levels will help the vet determine how acute the kidney failure is.
Be aware that by the time your tortoise is displaying the symptoms listed above, it may already be too late to reverse the kidney failure. One of the main jobs of the kidneys is to filter the blood and remove the toxins and acidic byproducts of normal cellular processes. As the kidneys fail, they are less effective at filtering the bloodstream, so those toxins and acidic compounds begin to build up. To neutralize the rising acid levels in the blood, the tortoise's body begins to remove calcium from its bones and shell -- leading to the softening of the shell, limp limbs, and the lethargy. The tortoise's internal organs can also suffer damage from the rising acidity and toxins. When tortoises reach this stage, no amount of fluids will make the kidneys restart or undo the damage to the tortoise's bones and organs. The kindest thing you can do at that point may be to euthanize the tortoise.
Why Does This Happen?
Misinformed pet stores or vets may tell new owners that because sulcata tortoises are desert animals, they cannot tolerate any humidity and should be kept at very high temperatures. THIS IS WRONG and it shows a real lack of understanding about how sulcata tortoises and many other desert animals actually deal with their environment!
The natural behavior of sulcata torts in the wild is to come out of their burrow in the early morning (when temperatures are cooler) to bask and eat. When the temperatures start to rise, they disappear back down into their burrows. They simply do not stay out in the heat of the day for any length of time if they can avoid it by finding shade or a burrow.
The relative humidity inside tortoise burrows in the wild has been measured at 40 to 60 percent, which is typically much higher than the above-ground humidity. Air temperatures inside a burrow are also much cooler -- typically 10 to 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) lower than above-ground temperatures. This cooler, more humid micro-environment prevents small tortoises from getting overheated and dehydrated, since they can move either higher or lower in the burrow as needed to remain comfortable.
Preventing Hatchling Failure Syndrome
The only real way to treat Hatchling Failure Syndrome is to keep your tortoise from becoming dehydrated in the first place. The best way to accomplish this is to establish a lower-temperature, higher-humidity micro-habitat in your tortoise enclosure, one that mimics the conditions found inside a tortoise burrow.
To prevent dehydration and establish this kind of micro-habitat in your enclosure, we suggest these steps:
- Continue to soak your hatchling or small tortoise regularly and provide a shallow water bowl for it to drink from.
- Provide a substrate that holds moisture, such as a 50/50 mixture of Bed-A-Beast® and topsoil, and make sure that the substrate is deep enough to allow your tortoise to dig a nightly burrow or scrape (a shallow burrow excavated on top of the soil). A tortoise will usually choose a dark corner away from any light or heat lamps to sleep in, so pile the substrate deeper in that area.
- Provide an appropriately-sized hide box with a cellulose sponge attached to the inside, and keep the sponge damp. This hide box can be in the sleeping corner or a different one. Observe your tortoise and see what it prefers.
- Monitor the humidity in your enclosure. Purchase a hygrometer and find a way to place it in the enclosure near where your tortoise sleeps. Try to maintain a humidity level of 60 to 75 percent in whatever area your tortoise sleeps in.
- Buy a spray bottle, a pump sprayer, or a watering can and use it to moisten the substrate regularly to maintain a higher humidity level in the tortoise's sleeping area.
Why do you have to do all this?
Darrell Senneke of the World Chelonian Trust puts it this way:
What is problematic is that we cannot duplicate a natural environment indoors for any tortoise. While the recorded humidity for areas where G. sulcata live in the wild may be very low, the humidity that is found down in a sulcata burrow can be considerably higher.Hatchlings -- particularly indoors in the summer in an air-conditioned building -- do not retain body moisture as well as adults. In air-conditioned houses, the ambient humidity can drop to 10% or lower.
A two-inch tortoise has roughly 8 times the surface-to-volume ratio of a four-inch tortoise. That means they only have one-eighth the reserves (moisture) of the larger animal. In addition the shell and skin is thinner so the transpiration through the skin is faster.
In the wild, if a hatchling is to survive (and very few do), it must have access to an area that will allow it to retain its moisture. In captivity (indoors) there is no way it can look for this area -- we must supply it.