Edinburgh University vets have been offering free health checks to tortoises to ensure they are fit for the big sleep this winter. Edinburgh is the only UK vet school with an exotic animals service. Gidona Goodman, lecturer in exotic animal medicine, said tortoises could suffer from malnourishment, pneumonia and jaundice because owners often fed them inappropriately and did not keep them warm enough.
Tortoises who were ill or whose shell was soft because of calcium deficiency should be stopped from hibernating by being kept indoors under artificial sunlight