Hey everyone! Just made an account here as I've recently done some pretty drastic overhauling with my Russian Tortoise. I've got some general specific care questions so I'll tell you a bit about the situation and the tortoise 
Thanks in advance for anyone taking the time to read or chime in. Also if you don't want to read all of the text, I'll put a line where my questions come up so you can skip the context if you want to
I've had my Russian for 12 years, he was purchased from a pet store in San Diego. Out there, we built a brick-based outdoor pen in the side yard.
Since then we moved to the San Jose, CA area and the tortoise did fine with the move. Again we build a brick outdoor pen in the side yard (though in harder soil than previously).
We fed him almost exclusively Romaine lettuce (yes, I'm fully aware they SHOULD have diet variety and they need vitamin dusting etc. but we'll get to that). He also has never had a water dish and rarely had a heat lamp, but he's been a hardy creature. We put him in a shoebox in the garage around October/November when it starts to rain and he has every year hibernated from about November-February without any problems.
I left for college September 2011 and left him with my roommate's girlfriend (they had another Russian as well). They kept him in a glass tank with hamster bedding and a heat lamp, indoors. Despite the glass tank w/ hamster bedding being less than ideal, they took better care of him than I ever did to be honest, as we did little more than let him roam in his pen and just fed him washed lettuce every day or two.
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Finally, I moved back home for the summer, put him outdoors again, and then 4 months later (fast forward to 3 weeks ago) I moved back up to school (Davis, CA near Sacramento) and into an apartment. This is where my questions and overhauling come up.
I put him in a large 50-gallon black plastic bin with moist soft dirt substrate, a "forest floor" wood-chip substrate, and his hamster bedding. Not surprisingly to me, he can almost always be found in the soft dirt substrate (which I have another bag of) and it almost seems like he's taken to relieving himself almost always on the hamster bedding. Would be pretty cool if he potty trained automatically.
I was keeping him in the backyard outdoor patio but unfortunately it's covered and the only place it isn't, a huge tree casts shade. For the past 2 and a half weeks or so, he's had almost no light (I've been so busy with everything I only just realized it last night). It does get warm here during the day but I noticed he seemed more lethargic and had less of an appetite. This morning I moved him inside, put a frisbee with water and Romaine lettuce in his enclosure, and put a heat lamp on. Pretty quickly he went to the lamp (ignoring his food; he hasn't eaten in 2 or 3 days now but that isn't particularly abnormal for him). He spent literally 2 hours under the lamp and has since burrowed.
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My questions are as follows:
- How important is light - or more specifically, how does the lack of light affect the tortoise?
- He's always been very timid - he does open up over time, but any sort of movement and even shadows and he will exhale air and shoot into his shell. From time to time when we had him outside he did roam around very fast and he wouldn't flinch when we'd reach down to feed him. He also is capable of learning and relearning to eat from my hands with very little trouble. But overall, he's timid and skittish. I know this is atypical behavior for RT's, but is it bad/does it need to be corrected some way?
- How important is the water dish? He's never had one before and he's always been fine, never been sick or anything, we joke that it's like I have a pet rock because he's only awake 7 or 8 months of the year and when he is awake, he seems to survive any weather, a one-dimensional diet, indoor and outdoor living etc. so I'm not convinced that for him it's necessary, but what changes should I expect to see now that I've introduced the dish? (Which he basically ignores so far).
- How important is handling him?
- He has literally no nails on his front feet. I can't find an example online of what this looks like, he just has stubby feet on the front two. I can't even remember if he ever did, but I think the chances are that he shaved away whatever nails he did have by burrowing constantly outside. Has anyone else heard or seen of this? It doesn't seem to hurt him or anything, he's been that way as long as I can remember so I'm not concerned, just found it unusual that even online I can't find anyone whose Russian has no front nails.
- Finally, do RT's live well with other breeds? He has lived before with a male RT (my brother's which ran away) and a female RT (my brother's which pretty mysteriously died in only a few months). My RT would bob his head and try to bite the female which I understand is pretty normal, but he was never violent or anything like that. I'm not very seriously considering trying to care for other animals just yet because I'm only just now figuring out how to take care of the one I have in our new living arrangement, and school starts Thursday which will give me less time for another high-maintenance pet. But my question is, are there other similarly hardy, low-maintenance tortoises that the RT might get along with?
Thanks so much for bearing with me, I could really use the help here because this is the only time in 12 years I've been confused as to how I should approach living and care with my tortoise.
Thanks in advance for anyone taking the time to read or chime in. Also if you don't want to read all of the text, I'll put a line where my questions come up so you can skip the context if you want to I've had my Russian for 12 years, he was purchased from a pet store in San Diego. Out there, we built a brick-based outdoor pen in the side yard.
Since then we moved to the San Jose, CA area and the tortoise did fine with the move. Again we build a brick outdoor pen in the side yard (though in harder soil than previously).
We fed him almost exclusively Romaine lettuce (yes, I'm fully aware they SHOULD have diet variety and they need vitamin dusting etc. but we'll get to that). He also has never had a water dish and rarely had a heat lamp, but he's been a hardy creature. We put him in a shoebox in the garage around October/November when it starts to rain and he has every year hibernated from about November-February without any problems.
I left for college September 2011 and left him with my roommate's girlfriend (they had another Russian as well). They kept him in a glass tank with hamster bedding and a heat lamp, indoors. Despite the glass tank w/ hamster bedding being less than ideal, they took better care of him than I ever did to be honest, as we did little more than let him roam in his pen and just fed him washed lettuce every day or two.
------------------
Finally, I moved back home for the summer, put him outdoors again, and then 4 months later (fast forward to 3 weeks ago) I moved back up to school (Davis, CA near Sacramento) and into an apartment. This is where my questions and overhauling come up.
I put him in a large 50-gallon black plastic bin with moist soft dirt substrate, a "forest floor" wood-chip substrate, and his hamster bedding. Not surprisingly to me, he can almost always be found in the soft dirt substrate (which I have another bag of) and it almost seems like he's taken to relieving himself almost always on the hamster bedding. Would be pretty cool if he potty trained automatically.
I was keeping him in the backyard outdoor patio but unfortunately it's covered and the only place it isn't, a huge tree casts shade. For the past 2 and a half weeks or so, he's had almost no light (I've been so busy with everything I only just realized it last night). It does get warm here during the day but I noticed he seemed more lethargic and had less of an appetite. This morning I moved him inside, put a frisbee with water and Romaine lettuce in his enclosure, and put a heat lamp on. Pretty quickly he went to the lamp (ignoring his food; he hasn't eaten in 2 or 3 days now but that isn't particularly abnormal for him). He spent literally 2 hours under the lamp and has since burrowed.
--------
My questions are as follows:
- How important is light - or more specifically, how does the lack of light affect the tortoise?
- He's always been very timid - he does open up over time, but any sort of movement and even shadows and he will exhale air and shoot into his shell. From time to time when we had him outside he did roam around very fast and he wouldn't flinch when we'd reach down to feed him. He also is capable of learning and relearning to eat from my hands with very little trouble. But overall, he's timid and skittish. I know this is atypical behavior for RT's, but is it bad/does it need to be corrected some way?
- How important is the water dish? He's never had one before and he's always been fine, never been sick or anything, we joke that it's like I have a pet rock because he's only awake 7 or 8 months of the year and when he is awake, he seems to survive any weather, a one-dimensional diet, indoor and outdoor living etc. so I'm not convinced that for him it's necessary, but what changes should I expect to see now that I've introduced the dish? (Which he basically ignores so far).
- How important is handling him?
- He has literally no nails on his front feet. I can't find an example online of what this looks like, he just has stubby feet on the front two. I can't even remember if he ever did, but I think the chances are that he shaved away whatever nails he did have by burrowing constantly outside. Has anyone else heard or seen of this? It doesn't seem to hurt him or anything, he's been that way as long as I can remember so I'm not concerned, just found it unusual that even online I can't find anyone whose Russian has no front nails.
- Finally, do RT's live well with other breeds? He has lived before with a male RT (my brother's which ran away) and a female RT (my brother's which pretty mysteriously died in only a few months). My RT would bob his head and try to bite the female which I understand is pretty normal, but he was never violent or anything like that. I'm not very seriously considering trying to care for other animals just yet because I'm only just now figuring out how to take care of the one I have in our new living arrangement, and school starts Thursday which will give me less time for another high-maintenance pet. But my question is, are there other similarly hardy, low-maintenance tortoises that the RT might get along with?
Thanks so much for bearing with me, I could really use the help here because this is the only time in 12 years I've been confused as to how I should approach living and care with my tortoise.
