snailpeekoutofshell
Member
I found what I believe to be a male Russian tortoise (please let me know if this looks wrong!) in my backyard about a week ago and I haven't been able to find his owner so I'm working on building an enclosure for him. We've named him Beans and I've currently been feeding him some young spring mix from the grocery store without the spinach. I have an old 2x14'ft flower bed in my backyard that we don't use anymore so I'm planning on building it out with retaining wall bricks and it'll end up being about 3.75x14'ft. I have a lot of questions about him so I'm not sure if I should make multiple posts, but right now I'm concerned about his enclosure so I can get it done ASAP because right now he's just living in a large 2x3 box with another smaller box inside as a hide and I've been letting him out in the flower bed during the day. I'm working on getting him a better temporary indoor enclosure but I didn't buy enough coco coir to fill the larger tub that I bought.
I live in Las Vegas so it gets quite hot here. The flower bed is currently surrounded by retaining wall bricks up against a larger brick or concrete wall. During the day here it's been about 80-90 degrees and the bricks get to around 140. The dirt gets to be around 150 in the sun and 80 in the shaded areas. I've let him explore around a bit in the dirt that's there now (we haven't used it in almost 8 years now so the dirt is very loose and I'm assuming infertile) but after a day out in the bed he was yawning and rubbing his face a lot and I read that if they're in very loose sand-like dirt this can happen. There's also a bunch of little rock pieces in it so I'm planning to dig it out or have it mixed with something else, but I'm not sure what a cost effective substrate would be. I bought some coco coir because I'm planning to grow some flowers (coneflower, California poppy, snapdragon), dandelions, and the Broadleaf Tetsudo mix from TortoiseSupply. I thought it would be good to mix with the dirt as a substrate, but it seems like it may be expensive to fill the whole enclosure with. Does anybody have any suggestions for what I could fill it with, or does the dirt currently in the enclosure look fine? I may have been overthinking his yawning/eye rubbing. I have some orchid bark also. I have a large 12x14"in terracotta pot buried on its side in the ground that I was going to fill with the orchid bark to create a more humid hide.
The current plan is to dig about a foot into the flower bed, line it with a weed barrier liner so he can't dig any deeper than that, and then I need to find a proper substrate to fill the space with. I was going to do the same for the area I'm building out onto, but that whole area is brick/stone and gets very hot so I need some options so I can make it a proper temperature for him. I'd like to line the bottom with wood or something to give a barrier but wood is very expensive right now...
Another question is whether or not anybody can identify the reddish flowers in the last picture. They blow in from one of my neighbors yards and I haven't had a chance to ask. A friend of mine said bougainvillea which is alright for tortoises, but I wanted to make sure it was safe for him because a ton have been blowing into the enclosure area.
I've added some pics of Beans (in the bath for a soak), the current flower bed set up, how I'm planning on upgrading the size, and the flower. I can take more pictures later, you can't see his tail in the pictures but its rather long and always tucked to the side which is why I've assumed he's male.
Sorry this is rather long, but I really want to be as thorough as possible and mention everything I've been doing so someone can let me know if anything hasn't been good for him!
I live in Las Vegas so it gets quite hot here. The flower bed is currently surrounded by retaining wall bricks up against a larger brick or concrete wall. During the day here it's been about 80-90 degrees and the bricks get to around 140. The dirt gets to be around 150 in the sun and 80 in the shaded areas. I've let him explore around a bit in the dirt that's there now (we haven't used it in almost 8 years now so the dirt is very loose and I'm assuming infertile) but after a day out in the bed he was yawning and rubbing his face a lot and I read that if they're in very loose sand-like dirt this can happen. There's also a bunch of little rock pieces in it so I'm planning to dig it out or have it mixed with something else, but I'm not sure what a cost effective substrate would be. I bought some coco coir because I'm planning to grow some flowers (coneflower, California poppy, snapdragon), dandelions, and the Broadleaf Tetsudo mix from TortoiseSupply. I thought it would be good to mix with the dirt as a substrate, but it seems like it may be expensive to fill the whole enclosure with. Does anybody have any suggestions for what I could fill it with, or does the dirt currently in the enclosure look fine? I may have been overthinking his yawning/eye rubbing. I have some orchid bark also. I have a large 12x14"in terracotta pot buried on its side in the ground that I was going to fill with the orchid bark to create a more humid hide.
The current plan is to dig about a foot into the flower bed, line it with a weed barrier liner so he can't dig any deeper than that, and then I need to find a proper substrate to fill the space with. I was going to do the same for the area I'm building out onto, but that whole area is brick/stone and gets very hot so I need some options so I can make it a proper temperature for him. I'd like to line the bottom with wood or something to give a barrier but wood is very expensive right now...
Another question is whether or not anybody can identify the reddish flowers in the last picture. They blow in from one of my neighbors yards and I haven't had a chance to ask. A friend of mine said bougainvillea which is alright for tortoises, but I wanted to make sure it was safe for him because a ton have been blowing into the enclosure area.
I've added some pics of Beans (in the bath for a soak), the current flower bed set up, how I'm planning on upgrading the size, and the flower. I can take more pictures later, you can't see his tail in the pictures but its rather long and always tucked to the side which is why I've assumed he's male.
Sorry this is rather long, but I really want to be as thorough as possible and mention everything I've been doing so someone can let me know if anything hasn't been good for him!