Arizona Heat

Whenever I research suitable temperatures to take a tortoise outside, they always say something like "anything hugher than 70". I live in Arizona and it can sometimes get to 120 degrees. I have a hatchling and was going to take him to the park across the street from my house everyday to graze and explore. If I take him only on the cooler days (105-) how long could I have him out for without him burning up? The next summer will not be for a while anyways, so this is not urgent whatsoever.

FIrst, never take your tortoise to a park. You have no idea what chemicals are sprayed there, and neither does the guy who manages the rest of the grounds crew. Even the individual grounds keepers often lie, tell you what they think you want to here, or simply don't know what the other guy did yesterday. You also don't know what sort of stuff is hidden in the grass. Lost earrings, rat poison, cigarette butts, etc... Its a dangerous world out there for a tortoise. Not worth the risk.

Second, when temps start climbing over 80-85, most Russians will seek heavy shade and cover. Make sure your safe, secure outdoor Russian enclosure offers this. At 95+ they will need some sort of underground retreat to escape the above ground heat of the day. Here is what I did for that: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/semi-underground-russian-box.98590/
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/heating-an-outdoor-russian-night-box.116180/#post-1077261

Alternatively, there are some other ideas in this thread along with a bunch of other useful tips: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/russian-tortoise-care-sheet.80698/ This one too: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/beginner-mistakes.45180/

On warm sunny days, your tortoise should never be out in full sun without heavy shade available. They can over heat and die in minutes in full sun even when temps are relatively cool for you or me in our hot climates.

Okay thankyou. I will veto my park idea. I was going to make an outdoor enclosure for him to stay in while I played drums. To do this I was going to cut out the lid of a rubbermaid bin and add fencing to keep out predators. Would a rubbermaid bin be too insulated and overheat? I was going to put holes all over to prevent that.

Why don’t you buy a kiddie pool and use that? You can plant all kinds in there

This was mine when I first made it.




And this is it when the weeds that I planted grew.

That is a good idea. Are you sure it keeps all of the cats, birds and other predators out?