Interested in Adopting Tortoise

[gabby.santana]

Hello Everyone currently we had to adopt out our lovely pair of Parakeets as a result of my mother developing bird fancier lung and the house now seems empty without them. I currently have other pets, including a box turtle that currently is inside as a result of the winter. I've never thought of owning reptiles until I rescued my box turtle and now realize how fun they are! Plus reptiles don't molt like birds do or shed like other mammals. I am interested in adopting a tortoise but first have many questions about them. I would love to adopt a baby one so my family can raise it.
~~~During the summer/spring my box turtle lives outside in a pretty large enclosure, can the tortoise live out with the box turtle together as well?
~~~I live in a town not to far from Fresno, CA can the tortoise spend the winters outside with given heat?
~~~ Do baby tortoises have to live inside?

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Gabby:

My box turtles, in fact all my turtles and tortoises, live outside here in Clovis, CA all the time. The box turtles hibernate under a big pile of leaf litter/garden trash. During the summer, their yard is heavily shaded by trees and shrubs, and they have a walk-in wading pool. Box turtles and tortoises should each have their own yard. Never mix species.

The tortoises that I have that aren't hibernating kind, have insulated and heated sheds to retreat to on cold days and nights.

Baby tortoises should live indoors the first year, then in their second year you can start taking them out on good days, but bringing them back in at night.

 

[gabby.santana]

Hi Yvonne, thanks for the reply. Ok so when can tortoises officially live outside after being kept indoors.

 

[gabby.santana]

BTW Merry Christmas Yvonne!

 

[Yvonne G]

Thank you!

I put my three year old box turtles out for good in the spring. Then by fall they have acclimated to living outside and I allow them to hibernate.

Baby tortoises are usually adopted out before their first year, but I would probably treat them the same. In their first year, then in and out the second year, then out for good the third year.

 

[gabby.santana]

Baby tortoises are generally kept the same as baby box turtles right? Except for baby torts need less humidity in their home right?

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Baby tortoises are generally kept the same as baby box turtles right? Except for baby torts need less humidity in their home right?

So so wrong. Box turtle function 100% differently. They eats worms and slugs and other yuckies. They are semi aquatic (right word?) and want access to water and will spend all their time in it even on the cold days. Boxies eat fruit. Sulcata come from a Savannah and are herbivores. Grass ,weeds, I had a Gopherus agassizii years ago and she caught a bluebelly off the wall and ate it...Boxies like it warm rather than hot and Sulcata like it hot, (Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon) oh sorry, I wandered.
And you should NEVER mix species. One species has a disease that he carries around like the herpes virus, doesn't hurt them, but it could kill the other species. You can't put anything but a Sulcata with a Sulcata. Box turtles and any tortoise have different requirements to survive. You need to replicate those conditions, and in the wild Sulcata and box turtles don't even live on the same continent. Get either a box turtle or a Russian...keep them completely apart. Stick around and please continue to as questions. We are not here to make you feel bad, but hopefully to make your tortoise's life better....And to make people friends...

 

[gabby.santana]

Thank you @maggie3fan very much. I meant as in the baby torts are kept in a spacious container with a heat emitter and a uv light/heat bulb. With the same substrate, I use the eco coconut substrate, it captures the heat very well. As of diet I know they eat very different things. I did not know about the disease thing thank you so much for commenting.