Ramming my foot!

chipperchip

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2015
Messages
37
Hello! Chip my redfoot is a Male about 8" x10". We figure he is about 10 yrs old. I live in NE Ohio and we have cold weather from around Oct thru May before Chip can go back outside in his enclosure during the warmer months. His indoor enclosure is a large box, around 6' x 3'. I have tried to put plants in there but he tramples them down & destroys them.I keep the room warm and have been ocassionally letting Chip run around the room for exercise & some external stimulation. I walked in the room barefoot & he went after my toes trying to bite them. I had red polish on them so I thought maybe he just thought they were something to eat. I went in there with shoes on and he literally braced himself and rammed my foot a few times. He is starting to creep me out because he kind of chases me around the room. It doesn't hurt, but I'd like to tap into the knowledge of the longtime redfoot owners and ask why he is getting kind of aggressive with my feet! Please advise! I feel bad keeping him confined to the box for 7 months so that is why I let him run around the room a few times a week.
 

ZEROPILOT

REDFOOT WRANGLER
Moderator
Tortoise Club
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jul 16, 2014
Messages
28,939
Location (City and/or State)
South Eastern Florida (U.S.A.)/Rock Hill S.C.
My bossiest Redfoot bites my feet. She has actually bitten chunks off of my shoes and likes to sneak up behind me if I'm ever doing maintenance in her pen. I need to keep one eye on her.
Its territorial.
Its instinctual.
And it can be painful.
And you need a much larger enclosure than a 3'x6'. And letting a tortoise roam around is super dangerous for the tortoise.
Keep your toes safe and try to build a larger enclosure are my suggestions.
But, in your situation, maybe sweep and mop the floor for safety and remove everything non essential from the room and the floor. Then partition off an ultra safe section for him to roam.
However, I have no idea how you would supply his humidity needs this way. Maybe with a whole room humidifier?
 
Last edited:

chipperchip

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2015
Messages
37
Thank you for your response. Yes, Chip has outgrown his enclosure, but he pretty much has a whole large bedroom to himself. I sweep the floor to make sure there is nothing for him to eat. My house has a boiler, offering hot water heat, so it is a moister air than a regular forced air furnace. He gets regular baths, too, but I dont think it is as humid as it should be. Feel bad for him during the winter months. Was going to donate him to a local nature center because they have a turtle/tortoise room, however, they got rid of all those not native to our area.
 

jeannettep

Active Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2019
Messages
124
Location (City and/or State)
Texas
Just a thought, have you looked into a greenhouse cheap on Amazon and a coop heater? They make tortoise heaters that go on the ground also and they are just as large as a coop heater, but they are more expensive. I would imagine you could make your own greenhouse over his outdoor pen to make it custom sized. I'm afraid I'm not experienced at all with snow, I'm in the South. But I know I saw directions for greenhouses in snow areas online. But my redfoots are using a warming house similar to the one Tom writes about on the forum and I use a radiator inside it. I put 2" thick foam insulation around the outside that is to go on outside foundations. I have to order that from Home Depot, I'm sure they think I'm crazy here for wanting that. I glued it to the outside of the warm house, not any on the front of their house where they could eat it. I attached a greenhouse to the front and it has a zipper front that I added zip ties and screwed it to their house to make it attach to their house. Then I spray painted the bottom edge of the greenhouse so they can't see out and put cypress mulch around the outside with some logs so when they push on the edge they think it's a wall. I put pictures of this on the forum, if you need help finding it I'll look it up. I made their humid hide 4'x2' and 2' high. I used plywood already cut from home depot and I also asked about their scrap pieces and got most of the other pieces I needed as a low section to keep the red foots away from touching the radiator for free. I lined the inside with a silver insulate that can take heat, I put it on a fire and used my temperature gun to double check. I pointed the front and the greenhouse away from wind to block North wind. I could have hung the coop heater, but I'm lazy and have it sitting on a brick leaning on the greenhouse. I added the brick because my red foots wanted to sit against it. Although they say animals can sit on it, I decided it was too warm on high. Yes it has 2 levels. If it gets down to 30 degrees I put the heater on high. The radiator is barely on and I went with a 600 or 800 watt, I don't recall but it's little and cheap. If it is going to be really windy, like the 50 mph and cold, I found these great tarp like blankets, one side silver the other orange with grommets so I used zip ties and a brick to hold it down to add extra cover over the top and it goes partway on all the sides. Enough to provide extra coverage over the house/greenhouse connection. I can still use the zipper most of the way on the greenhouse, but this helped. I have had NO difficulty keeping it 80 degrees inside there. One day a couple cup hooks would be great to use. I'm lazy so I also got a soaker hose, you know the kind that are somewhat stiff and stay curled forever. I let it loop to go through the greenhouse, over their water dish and a small section in the house of their humid hide. I have it set to come on lightly for 10 min a day. So I know that it's a little small overall for them and I wish I had bought the same greenhouse that I got for some of my plants, cause it has more floor space. I stayed with short ones so heat is easier. But here's my list and I don't use those commission type links (I'm lazy):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LX9K1JI/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

This is the greenhouse I got, yes I was missing a piece to connect the bottom center, they sent me the piece a few months ago, but I haven't taken time to put it on yet, remember I'm lazy. I just pushed the center arch in the ground a little.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P5PSGBM/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

This is the greenhouse I wish I got for them and with multiple doors, you could connect more together instead of cutting a doorway and connecting more together to make it a larger sunroom
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K8J5LN4/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

This is awesome when I enlarge their warm house to 4x4 like Tom suggests in his writeup, I'll need to get another one, but my radiator should be fine.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CJ9BH2M/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

Lined with this

I used 2 of these and they are easy to score and pop in half for the sides of my 2 foot wide. Had I gone with 4x4 house like everyone suggests, I wouldn't have to cut it.

I used this glue, 2 bottles of it!

I used a better extension cord and only the length needed to work, apparently it's safer this way and you don't burn the garage.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O978S5E/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

I had ivory spray paint for the bottom outside of the greenhouse (used to cover a small fire I had against the garage, due to an unrelated blonde moment), but I'm sure any color would work. Don't spray a lot cause it will melt, just a little bit kept them from pacing the edge.

Almost forgot! When Home Depot shipped me the foam board, they used a 1 inch foam board to cover the decorative side, which I used for the underside of their house. Colder climates may need that, I figure space away from the ground is good here. I had ordered in 2 separate orders because I forgot the back so I got 2, 1 inch foam boards for free!

Make sure to use Kennel Spray on all the wood when you're done. I put it on everything wood and it makes clean up so fast and it is harmless! We have to worry about rotted wood really fast here. That's pricey but a little goes a long way.

From what I read that Red Foots are use to a jungle and UVB is not a big priority, which could be wrong, but I can open the zipper on the greenhouse on warm days and peel back the opening so they can sun themselves. But I think one of those slim uvb bulb hoods could be mounted and put on a timer. They don't emit heat.

I also put my heaters on inkbird to shut off at designated temp as a extra.

Oh my my red foots LOVE it. They go back and forth between their house and the greenhouse. They still have winter slowdown and don't eat as much. But they look great, their skin is great. The plants are growing like crazy! And they know the sound of a zipper and come running to the food buffet!

So a lot of pieces and it took some figuring out because my investigator did figure out how to get out of the greenhouse on one side, but an extra screw in the house and another zip tie to the rescue! We have NEVER build anything like this before so harbor freight to the rescue!

We spent 4 hours building the house, our hinged roof sux now and so zip ties work. We sprayed with kennel spray and let dry, then I added the foam boards and let that dry overnight. We used bungy cords connected and put around it to hold the foam board mostly in place.

I put the silver bubble stuff lightly glued to the plywood before we screwed it together, which we thought would help seal it and not need caulk. That was easier because I'm lazy and I didn't want to have to worry about straight lines, etc.

The greenhouse took about 15 minutes to mess with and another 5 minutes due to the investigator.

I think we used 1 inch plywood because we were going to be screwing some of the pieces on the side and we had never done this before.

Looking at it I could have used less expensive foamboard around the outside because it looks good with the decorated side, but the edges all show and it's lavender. Blonde moment. BTW, you can't spray paint the foam, it melts. Another blonde moment. Also, webcams can't connect inside their hide box because of the silver bubble stuff, even if you buy a signal booster. More blonde moments! I say that to show that it's really easy to put the warm hide box together even though we were totally intimidated by everyone's instructions and pictures. Granted ours is far from the showcase theirs are, but it does what it's intended to do and it wasn't real expensive. My husband is happy because I'm not drawing too many amps so I don't start another fire and the electric bill has not been impacted enough to notice.

On the greenhouse, I'm sure you would need to reinforce it for ice and snow. But where it connects to the house after a lot of rain, I have to dump the rain off it because that holds water and water is heavy and so far has not caused any problems. I'm sure more zip ties I can fix a runoff, one day when I'm not lazy I'll figure it out.

Sorry so long-winded, I hope you will think outside the box for your area and come up with a solution so you can keep your baby. They make those heater mats for keeping ice off the sidewalk. If you have cold coming up through the ground, maybe one of those to help keep the cold from coming up from the bottom might help. Keep cold from coming from the bottom and keep heat from escaping from the top and you have it made.
 
Last edited:

Toddrickfl1

Well-Known Member
Tortoise Club
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 7, 2018
Messages
7,103
Location (City and/or State)
Ga
My Redfoot recently started doing the same thing to my hands when I'm doing something in his enclosure. Your tort is trying to tell you that's his territory and you need to leave.
 

bouaboua

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Dec 7, 2013
Messages
11,809
Location (City and/or State)
San Jose CA
They think we are the intruder into there territory. My sulcata will ram me from the back all the time.
 

chipperchip

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2015
Messages
37
My Redfoot recently started doing the same thing to my hands when I'm doing something in his enclosure. Your tort is trying to tell you that's his territory and you need to leave.
Do they do this at a certain age? He never did before!
 

chipperchip

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2015
Messages
37
They think we are the intruder into there territory. My sulcata will ram me from the back all the time.
Hope your sulcata isnt too big! That has to hurt. My guy literally speeds up & chases my feet all over the room.
 

bouaboua

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Dec 7, 2013
Messages
11,809
Location (City and/or State)
San Jose CA
Hope your sulcata isnt too big! That has to hurt. My guy literally speeds up & chases my feet all over the room.
Oh, it hurts. So I'm extra careful when I have to kneel down to do things in his enclosure like cleaning up his poop. hahahaha~
 
Joined
Jun 26, 2017
Messages
33
Location (City and/or State)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
my marginated puffs up on me (stands tall and charges me) he doesn't to other family members, every winter seems to be an adventure! as last winter was his junk all day, every day... would you look at that! lol; but he also goes for nail polish. we hand feed him so I am sure Gam's thinks it is a strawberry or blueberry. He goes nuts for a blueberry! cleaning up poop gets him riled up quick, he hates white kleenex.
 

Sa Ga

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2019
Messages
653
Location (City and/or State)
MN
my marginated puffs up on me (stands tall and charges me) he doesn't to other family members, every winter seems to be an adventure! as last winter was his junk all day, every day... would you look at that! lol; but he also goes for nail polish. we hand feed him so I am sure Gam's thinks it is a strawberry or blueberry. He goes nuts for a blueberry! cleaning up poop gets him riled up quick, he hates white kleenex.
Wow....maybe I WON'T get any bigger torts someday! Morla is amazingly gentle, visibly delicate and careful to avoid my fingers when I feed her. But wow...when she's a little overzealous and gets some human with her collards.... YOWWWWWOOOOOOOOUUUUCHHHHH! How can such a tiny thing bite SO hard without even trying??? I can only imagine what something like a red or sulcata could do--esp if they ARE trying!!! ?

P.S. Be careful and don't show Gam this emoji! ? ????
 
Last edited:
Top