Vlad's Place

[Foursteels]

For months on end, each time I went to PetSmart to pick up my dog's food, I kept seeing this Russian Tortoise stuffed into a 10 gallon fish tank. There was only enough room for his hide, a water dish and a food dish. I thought it would be nice to give it a better quality of life so my husband and I went ahead and built this outdoor enclosure for it. The store staff had given the tort the nickname Vlad and it sounded cute so that's what it is. Vlad goes out to his place during day and at night he's currently in a 55 gallon rubbermaid with substrate, a climbable hide and his water dish. The container is kept in a screened in porch here in Southeast Florida so the weather is very warm right now. Once we add some weeds and a screen top to the outdoor enclosure, Vlad will stay year-round in his place as long as the weather permits.

 

[Angel Carrion]

Very beautiful enclosure. Thank you for giving this cutie a good home.
Only thing I feel the need to say is you may want to remove those small rocks and replace them with bigger rocks. The problem with the rocks is that they pose an impaction hazard if swallowed, and torts and turtles have a bad habit of swallowing anything that will fit in their mouths (like a 2 year old, haha).

 

[Foursteels]

Very beautiful enclosure. Thank you for giving this cutie a good home.
Only thing I feel the need to say is you may want to remove those small rocks and replace them with bigger rocks. The problem with the rocks is that they pose an impaction hazard if swallowed, and torts and turtles have a bad habit of swallowing anything that will fit in their mouths (like a 2 year old, haha).

I've been removing the pebbles as I see them and leaving the bigger rocks assuming they were too large to swallow. Most are almost at least the size of a marble.

 

[Angel Carrion]

The big stones like the ones in the last picture he's crawling on are good, but the smaller ones over the one hide and under the bit of tile in the center may be too small and should most likely be removed.

 

[Angel Carrion]

Also the ones around the plants. If you want/need stones in these places, using bigger ones would be fine, as long as he couldn't fit them in his mouth.
Not all of the rocks in these places look too small, but a good portion do appear to be too small.

 

[4jean]

What a beautiful tortoise, so glad you are giving him such a wonderful new life!

 

[tortoise5643]

Very nice cage. He won't keep it that way though lol

 

[TMartin510]

My one tip is maybe consider putting a door on top that will flip open and lock cover with some kind of metal screen.
That is if you have racoons near by. What happened to me, I had something like that, and birds attacked (Scrub Jays) killed one of my baby torts, and went after my box turtle and russian and left marks. I've declared war against Srub Jays.

 

[TMartin510]

On a second note, I'm glad you got that little guy, he's gonna be so happy now

 

[Foursteels]

I added the screen top today and it will be Vlad's first night out alone.