Many, many years ago, when I first got interested in tortoises, I belonged to our local turtle club. We had heard that if you buy size lots of tortoises from the wholesaler you can get them pretty cheap, so a friend and I borrowed a friend's wholesale number and made the trip to Southern California to buy Russian tortoises. Please bear in mind that this was probably 30 or 40 years ago when I was a young, spring chicken. My memory's not what it used to be and my numbers may be off, but 'numbers' is not the point I'm making, so take the numbers with a grain of salt.
So if we bought 20 or so Russians we would get them for $10 apiece. This was when they were retailing for around $50 to $75 each. So we bought 20. I sold as many as they wanted to club members and ended up with 6 or 7 of them. I had set up a nice yard for them to live in, and just let them go to be tortoises. Winter came and they all disappeared. I knew they were hibernating (now I know it's 'brumating') and wasn't worried about them. But in the spring, then into summer, there were no russians in that yard.
The lesson at that time that I learned was that the winters here are too wet for this species of tortoise to be allowed to brumate naturally, and I messed up by not setting them up differently. The lesson I now realize, besides it being too wet here, is one should keep a new-to-you tortoise up the first winter it lives with you.
Fast forward to currently. I have three huge female Russians and one small male. Ever since that winter long ago I have always picked up the Russians, packed them in boxes of either dried leaves or newspaper, and set them in hibernaculums on the carport, where they are safe from extreme cold and the temperature is constant. BUT, this last fall they had been moved to a new-to-them yard and the all disappeared before I could gather them up. I really gave it a good try, but after several days of searching I just couldn't find them. So they spent this past winter outside.
We've had some pretty nice weather recently and I've been watching the Russian yard, hoping to see Russians. And lo and behold! I've been able to spot two of them. And both were up against the house in a slight depression sunning themselves. So I figured they had spent the winter under my house where they would have been dry all winter.
This past winter was pretty wet for our area and the weed and grass is growing great. BUT, it's getting too tall for my mower, so I've been using the strimmer, which is really better because the mower doesn't cut short enough to suit me. I've been working on the Russian yard for about a week (and the part I started with is almost needing trimming again), and today as I was working my strimmer hit a bump in the tall grass. There should be no bumps in that yard, so I carefully parted the grass and took a good look.
The Russian yard:
You can see the bump I'm talking about just in front of the black rake in the above picture.
A closer shot:
And looking even closer, A TORTOISE:
Since she's facing up out of the hole, I'm assuming she was deeper for the winter and is only coming up now to warm up.
Can you imagine? Right out in the middle of the yard. No protection at all!
Well, I'm happy to have now seen all three females. Where o where can my little boy be?
So if we bought 20 or so Russians we would get them for $10 apiece. This was when they were retailing for around $50 to $75 each. So we bought 20. I sold as many as they wanted to club members and ended up with 6 or 7 of them. I had set up a nice yard for them to live in, and just let them go to be tortoises. Winter came and they all disappeared. I knew they were hibernating (now I know it's 'brumating') and wasn't worried about them. But in the spring, then into summer, there were no russians in that yard.
The lesson at that time that I learned was that the winters here are too wet for this species of tortoise to be allowed to brumate naturally, and I messed up by not setting them up differently. The lesson I now realize, besides it being too wet here, is one should keep a new-to-you tortoise up the first winter it lives with you.
Fast forward to currently. I have three huge female Russians and one small male. Ever since that winter long ago I have always picked up the Russians, packed them in boxes of either dried leaves or newspaper, and set them in hibernaculums on the carport, where they are safe from extreme cold and the temperature is constant. BUT, this last fall they had been moved to a new-to-them yard and the all disappeared before I could gather them up. I really gave it a good try, but after several days of searching I just couldn't find them. So they spent this past winter outside.
We've had some pretty nice weather recently and I've been watching the Russian yard, hoping to see Russians. And lo and behold! I've been able to spot two of them. And both were up against the house in a slight depression sunning themselves. So I figured they had spent the winter under my house where they would have been dry all winter.
This past winter was pretty wet for our area and the weed and grass is growing great. BUT, it's getting too tall for my mower, so I've been using the strimmer, which is really better because the mower doesn't cut short enough to suit me. I've been working on the Russian yard for about a week (and the part I started with is almost needing trimming again), and today as I was working my strimmer hit a bump in the tall grass. There should be no bumps in that yard, so I carefully parted the grass and took a good look.
The Russian yard:
You can see the bump I'm talking about just in front of the black rake in the above picture.
A closer shot:
And looking even closer, A TORTOISE:
Since she's facing up out of the hole, I'm assuming she was deeper for the winter and is only coming up now to warm up.
Can you imagine? Right out in the middle of the yard. No protection at all!
Well, I'm happy to have now seen all three females. Where o where can my little boy be?
