Greek Enclosure Advice

[elainea]

Hey all. I used to have an account on here but I think it got deleted because of inactivity. I have a greek tortoise named Spiffy! She is outgrowing her current enclosure so I'm planning on building her one when I move into my new house in a month.

I'm aiming for this...
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk152/portsample/TurtleHabitat.jpg

But with a few tweaks. Firstly, only the front side would be glass; the rest would be wood. Secondly, there'd be no pool, just a shallow wading area.

So a few questions..
- What plants should I look into growing?
- Can Greeks eat earth worms or other things that could live within the soil?
- Do any of y'all have any advice or ideas for such an enclosure?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi elainea:

I don't know much about the Greek tortoises, I just wanted to say:

Welcome (back??) to the Tortoise Forum!!

What would you like us to call you?

...and may we know appx. where in the world you are?

 

[yoda3106]

Hey all. I used to have an account on here but I think it got deleted because of inactivity. I have a greek tortoise named Spiffy! She is outgrowing her current enclosure so I'm planning on building her one when I move into my new house in a month.

I'm aiming for this...
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk152/portsample/TurtleHabitat.jpg

But with a few tweaks. Firstly, only the front side would be glass; the rest would be wood. Secondly, there'd be no pool, just a shallow wading area.

So a few questions..
- What plants should I look into growing?
- Can Greeks eat earth worms or other things that could live within the soil?
- Do any of y'all have any advice or ideas for such an enclosure?

Thanks in advance!

Hi elaniea, I have 2 Greeks who live outdoors!! How old is spiffy??

What you aiming or is very impressive you've said about the 2 things I spotted straight away and you've already said your going to rectify it so you've read my mind lol

As for your questions

1, I'd say grow spider plants, hibiscus plants and maybe a few decorative plants in pots that they can't reach but can be used for shade
2, NO, don't feed them anything of this sort, Greeks are big plant and weed eaters
3, I'd make it as natural as possibly, add things you'd find in the wild, rocks, logs, bottoms of trees (ie roots etc), maybe make a little cave etc just as wild and natural as poss!!

Dan

 

[elainea]

I've had spiffy for about three years now almost. I have no idea how old she was when I got her, and she grew fairly slowly for the first year because of the diet I had her on (vet misinformed me...).
But she's growing steady now thanks to the info I found on this forum! Thus the new enclosure.
You can call me Elainea. Spiffy and I live in Louisiana so it's usually nice and warm so she can go outside in the afternoons!

Those plant ideas are very helpful, thanks! Spiffy does love hibiscus leaves.

Anyone else have experience with such things? I'll also be sure to post pictures of the finished product. Is there a specific grass she may like?

 

[NudistApple]

From what I understand they don't necessarily eat a ton of normal grass, but they sure love clover. I suppose if you wanted to plant it in her enclosure (the grass) it certainly wouldn't hurt anything though, and would help with humidity.

My little Greek likes to dig down at night, but she always does it in one spot, so I guess you could let yours pick their spot before you plant, to prevent uprooting.

As for the worms, they are definitely little vegans, and I wouldn't intentionally feed her any animal protein, but if you used yard-dirt and there were a few worms or isopods living in the soil that she happened to munch on, it definitely wouldn't kill her.

There are lots of accounts of torts eating carrion or baby animals or bugs...it just isn't their primary diet!