My new tortie

[trongbui]

Hi all,
This is John, and I'm from San Jose. I just got my first Russian tortoise from Petco last week. Since its tail is pretty short, I assume it's a female and name her Tania but I'm not 100% sure, so I might need you guys to sex her again. She's about 4 inches long, very active and is a good eater. However, her shell appears to be different from other tort that I saw here. There are many "scratches" on the black spots. I don't know if it is normal or a sign of some disease like shell rot. Here are some of her pics, please check her out.

 

[slowpoke]

Yea that looks like a female to me ... Being from petco im sure it is a WC (wild caught) might just be damage from the trip to America ... but im sure some one with more experience with that could tell you more on if its shell rot or not ...

 

[Yvonne G]

That's really not scratches. If you were to allow her to soak for quite a while to soften the "stuff" then take a soft bristle brush and scrub the carapace, most of that would come off. Its just dust/dirt that got stuck in the grooves of her carapace.

But to give you a little insight into russian tortoise capture, "they" gather up the little tortoises by the hundreds, pile them all on top of each other in boxes. By the time the arrive here in America, they've pooped and peed on each other. Some have died. It really is a pretty gross sight. That's why I always encourage folks who've recently bought a russian from a pet store to get it de-wormed right off the bat.

Years ago when russian tortoises were a novelty in the pet trade, I went to SoCal and visited a few of the wholesalers. They had Russian tortoises by the thousands. They were in crowded pens and quite dirty. We could buy them for $10 apiece if we bought batches of 30.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Congrats!

 

[trongbui]

Thanks all
@ Yvonne: Can i bring her to any vet to get her de-wormed? I mean do all vet know about mammals and reptiles, or I need to find her some specialist. In case I wanna bring another CB home, can I keep them together in this same enclosure with the same substrate? Thanks in advance

 

[Yvonne G]

You should probably look for a reptile vet, so that you can be assured they know the correct dosage of the de-worming medicine.

There should always be a quarantine period before adding new tortoises to your existing. The minimum, in my opinion, quarantine period should be 90 days.

Another thing to consider is the fact that tortoises are solitary creatures. They don't like to have other tortoises in their territory (especially the males), and adding another tortoise would really upset the balance. If you want more than one tortoise of the same species, then three is better than two, and a very large outdoor pen is much better than keeping multiples indoors.