Tipped over tortoise

[Bubbatort]

I got a new tortoise named Bubba from a local Petsmarts. (I know, not the best place) I heard that a healthy tortoise can flip himself over when fallen over. So I tried it to see how he does. When I flipped him over he just kind of sat there. It was barely a minute and I flipped him back over. I was testing this because I changed up my enclosure and now Bubba is able to climb his wood hide which I heard gives him a good opportunity to climb. He seemed excited and he did it over and over again. So It made me think what if he was to flip on accident. How can I test him without impacting his health? And how do I make his Climb safer?

 

[WillTort2]

Post pictures of tortoise and enclosure so that members can better advise you.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[ascott]

I would avoid flipping the tort on purpose....."healthy" has not alot to do with if they can right themselves or not.....many variables matter more; type of soil/ solidity of soil/ any objects able to be used as footing to push against/ how deep the dome of the shell is....and so on....

 

[smarch]

I say this from experience from owning a Petco tortoise, if he's new to you, the entire concept of you being near him terrifies him because he's probably barely had any human interaction at all. So in flipping him, he was probably too scared to even try to right himself. I'd give it some time before doing anything like that, and they REALLY don't like that at all so the best bet is to keep an eye out in his enclosure to see if he flips.
Franklin climbs up his log, slides down and jumps off all the time and I've never caught him flipped from that, just corners that he dwells on trying to escape from.

So if he's new give him time to recognize you and bond to the idea of giant people, right now in doing that he's really just seeing a scary giant putting him in ways that are uncomfy and stressful, so he's probably too scared to flip back. You'll be surprised of how capable they are at righting themselves when the time comes.