I just found this thread, this is so awesome. In college I worked at our zoo for a short time in the Avian dept. It gave me a whole new level of respect and intrigue for birds as well as conservation efforts. Thanks for sharing on here!
Today I fed my Russian a mix of escarole, radicchio, and collard greens. Mixed with some mashed pellets and a sprinkling of herbal hay, both from Tortoise Supply.
Although what he actually ate was the escarole, because he keeps picking through everything else...?♀️
Hi! If you want live plants (I have some in cypress mulch) you can just sink a little starter pot mostly into the mulch. That way he can’t trample it plus you can still have them growing in soil. Also check out the tortoisetable website/app for food and what plants he can have in the enclosure...
Just out of curiosity, does he actually play with that little ball you have in there? I’ve been wondering if something like that would give my Russian some kind of enrichment, but I don’t think he’d think anything of it
Hi! I’ve read from tortoise table and somewhere else that many herbs are safe but tortoises will not likely eat them because of the strong smell. I have rosemary and thyme plants in my enclosure. He will crawl under them and smell them sometimes but I’ve only seen him nibble at one once and he...
I built a table for my Russian that is now the biggest piece of furniture I have haha. When I'm older and settled with space and money to do everything right, I would love more tortoises. I feel like once I have that capability I'm gonna want every kind of tortoise I can get ?
Hi - about the baths. I read from someone else on here that it can help to give them a soak right around when they're waking up. When I do that mine will sit in there content and take some drinks for a good 20-30 minutes before he gets antsy. If I just pick him up while he's doing something...
Hmm I guess I just automatically assumed enclosed was more for humidity's sake, but what you're saying makes sense. His humidity holds steady at 60%, a bit higher overnight. So I didn't worry too much about that. Room temp for me is 75. The lowest I've seen his cool end get overnight is 69. I've...
Hi there,
I recently built my Russian a table after learning that my last enclosure just wasn’t going to cut it. He previously had the single MVB bulb you see in the pic and that seemed sufficient for the much smaller enclosure and just happened to create a decent temp gradient, but from what...
Thank you so much, I'm definitely going to see what I can do and follow your suggestions. I'm excited to build him a new house. I put his temperatures where you suggested today and he actually stayed out of his little hole for quite awhile, so I feel a little better already :)
No this is really helpful, I appreciate it! I feel like I thought I did research and then things keep turning out to be wrong. I've raised the lamp this morning and will keep an eye on the temperatures, make sure they come down to a better level. I've had the bulb a month.
Wow I love your...
It's a real rock, just a flat garden stone type thing. I am using an infrared digital thermometer to check specific spots, and then I have a regular thermometer on the wall of his enclosure, closer to the cool end. I checked the basking spot using a few stacked stone coasters to account for...
Hi! I don't have a picture at the moment but it's about 4ftx2ft. I realize this is small, I intend to build him a bigger table. It seemed a lot bigger until I put all the "furniture" in :/. I have the zoomed Powersun Mercury vapor bulb, which hangs over the basking rock. The rock sits at 100...
Hi there, I just joined Tortoise Forum but have been reading through the threads for awhile. I have an adult male Russian tortoise and I'm just looking for some input. He spends the vast majority of his time sleeping, and I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong to affect his activity level...