Bored?

[Cinnamon563]

Do tortoises get bored? If so how do I help this? My tortoise is constantly trying to get out of his cage lately and digging and climbing, how do I make his cage more interesting for him. It's a 4ft by 2ft tortoise table. With a little upstairs loft thing.
He also needs new substrate I'm not most happy with the substrate he has but kept it till it was time for new. He currently has like a pet store turtle substrate it's like little circle pieces of wood or something, doesn't hold any moisture at all. I tried sand once but it was really messy. Any suggestions on what might be better, maybe so he'd stop scratching the bottom of his cage my bearded dragon who has an enclosure built into the sand probably doesn't appreciate it and I don't either when sleeping.

Here's what it looks like now. Disregard the uneaten food pieces and the dirty bedding, I'm cleaning all my reptile cages tomorrow.

 

[russian/sulcata/tortoise]

amazing cage! did you build it your self? in my opinion torts can get bored, my tots old cage was boring just the stuff they had to have and they always just kept scratching at the walls trying to get out. so i made a bigger enclosure with lots of grasses and weeds to munch on and hide, a pice of drift wood to climb on, lots of visual barriers, little hills, burrows. when i added all of those the torts just stopped the scratching

 

[Cinnamon563]

Yes. I can't make a bigger enclosure. But I'll have to try out adding more fun stuff for him to keep him entertained.

 

[lismar79]

Sometimes they just get restless... but I would still check to make sure temps are correct. Russians like a cool area. Bored is not an emotion they feel. Mostly its all about survival. Some plants would be good for him to hide in! I use coir under my repti bark and mine loves to dig into it. Holds moisture really well:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001F998AS/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

 

[Cinnamon563]

Yes. I can't make a bigger enclosure. But I'll try adding something interesting. What plants can I add? I used to have grass in there but it died.

 

[lismar79]

Spider plants are good. So are hostas, violets, aloe, and grasses.
Here's a link to help you find more.
http://m.thetortoisetable.org.uk/m/plants_19.asp

If you buy plants that are sold in stores and are to organic, you will meed to re pot them and give them months to work out the chemicals they use on them.