New tortoise owner: please help!

[amne1984]

Hello,

My name is Annie, and my sister recently gave me her red-footed tortoise (I named her Tortsky) ; my sister was a poor tortoise owner and I've always had to intervene in the past to help rectify issues (changing her water bowl, soaking her, etc), and now that she's officially mine, I'd like to make sure Tortsky gets healthy and has what she needs. I took a picture of her shell; can someone tell me how old she is and if she's dehydrated? She's about 6.5 inches right now.

 

[iAmCentrochelys sulcata]

None of us can tell how old is she/he
you might want to soak her/him for 20 Minutes in Warm Water.
show a picture of the enclosure
what are the temperature and humidity
what do you feed her/him?

 

[amne1984]

None of us can tell how old is she/he
you might want to soak her/him for 20 Minutes in Warm Water.
show a picture of the enclosure
what are the temperature and humidity
what do you feed her/him?

Here is a picture of her terrarium. I will be moving her to a much larger enclosure soon. I plan to build an 8x4 enclosure within the next couple weeks. She already has a UVB/UVA heat lamp I got her last fall, but before that, I know my sister used a heat lamp that didn't have UVA/UVB, so I'm worried Tortsky might have lasting damage from spending long periods of time without proper lighting.

Her diet largely consisted of those Mixed Green bags you buy in grocery stores; lettuce, radicchio, carrots, butter lettuce. I limit the amount of spinach I give her because I read it's unhealthy for redfoots.

Occasionally, I'll give her a slice of banana, strawberries, and--during the summer--I've picked some dandelions.

I just bought some Mazuri Tortoise Diet food online, which should be coming in about a week or so.

Also, we live in Chicago, so I can only take her outside during the summer months. She spent most of this past winter indoors in this terrarium, so she didn't get much exercise. I let her out as much as my sister would allow, so she could walk around and get exercise, but even in our heated home, she would quickly get too cold.

 

[iAmCentrochelys sulcata]

Redfoots get about a a foot long you’ll need something WAYY Bigger, feed more variety try cutting the carrots and add spring mix, mustard, collard, etc. i’ll link a care sheet.
i’ll wait for some one more experienced to come.

Redfoot Tortoise Caresheet

REDFOOT TORTOISE CARESHEET ALL Tortoises on the planet require that 4 parameters be "IN BALANCE". How this is accomplished ( or required ) is as varied as there are regions and keepers on the planet. Temperature - Humidity - Lighting - Diet Redfoot tortoises require the same parameters -...

www.tortoiseforum.org

Good Luck.

 

[Yvonne G]

Good of you to take on the responsibility for caring for your sister's tortoise. We have a couple of very good care sheets for you to read and learn from:

Redfoot Tortoise Care Sheet

NOTE: I do not keep redfoots, and I only have one tortoise in total. With this in mind, remember that I am in no way an expert, and this should not be used as cold hard proof of how to raise a redfoot. I used information from great keepers on this forum to put everything together. This care...

tortoiseforum.org

Redfoot Tortoise Caresheet

REDFOOT TORTOISE CARESHEET ALL Tortoises on the planet require that 4 parameters be "IN BALANCE". How this is accomplished ( or required ) is as varied as there are regions and keepers on the planet. Temperature - Humidity - Lighting - Diet Redfoot tortoises require the same parameters -...

tortoiseforum.org

I'm afraid that your aquarium, while rather large, still isn't big enough for your tortoise. Here's a link to an enclosure one of our members built for their redfooted tortoise:

Here's Dales new enclosure (picture heavy)

This is Dale's new enclosure that I have been promising to post pictures of for so long. I don't know how I got them to post big, but I'm so happy they did. I hope you all enjoy them I know Dale's much happier now. I hope you like the enclosure my husband and so worked hard on it. And I...

tortoiseforum.org