As of last week I find myself the proud new owner of this little guy:
As we will be unsure of sex for quite some time we have decided he is male for now and named him Michel. Currently he is about 8" plastron length. He's residing in an 8x30 section of my yard for now while he settles in, and will ultimately have about a quarter of an acre to roam. Here is a pic of his temporary accommodations:
I haven't been brave enough to leave him out all day alone yet since it is so hot. I'm probably being too overprotective? I also want to do some more work to his yard. Today I'm going to mow the grass down short and strip out a section to plant some nice weeds for him. I'm also going to install a sprinkler on a timer to come on a few times a day. So far he has been going out for several hours in the evenings and the rest of his time in my shed, which I keep at 83-85 degrees and about 80% humidity. He feels a little light to me for his size so I'm working on fattening him up a bit. He loves spring mix and the various native tasty weeds I've been collecting for him!
I'm hoping to use this thread to chronicle his growth and will post periodic updates as I work on his yard, build his night box, tortoise proof the rest of my yard for him, etc.
As we will be unsure of sex for quite some time we have decided he is male for now and named him Michel. Currently he is about 8" plastron length. He's residing in an 8x30 section of my yard for now while he settles in, and will ultimately have about a quarter of an acre to roam. Here is a pic of his temporary accommodations:
I haven't been brave enough to leave him out all day alone yet since it is so hot. I'm probably being too overprotective? I also want to do some more work to his yard. Today I'm going to mow the grass down short and strip out a section to plant some nice weeds for him. I'm also going to install a sprinkler on a timer to come on a few times a day. So far he has been going out for several hours in the evenings and the rest of his time in my shed, which I keep at 83-85 degrees and about 80% humidity. He feels a little light to me for his size so I'm working on fattening him up a bit. He loves spring mix and the various native tasty weeds I've been collecting for him!
I'm hoping to use this thread to chronicle his growth and will post periodic updates as I work on his yard, build his night box, tortoise proof the rest of my yard for him, etc.