Adopting three redfoots soon

[FLGirl41]

I visited my friends' place last weekend. They have 13 torts, all of whom are adoptions, rescues, or rehabbed wild species. They want to devote more space to their gopher torts, so they have offered to give their three redfoots to me. The male is 15 years old, 12", and an absolute sweetheart. He would not leave me alone during my visit and enjoyed getting petted. When I stepped outside their pen he stood on his hind legs and begged at the wall for me to give him more attention, haha! The two females are a bit younger and around 9" SCL. They are more shy but I hope to change that with some TLC and trust.

I am looking at bringing them home first of June. I need to section off part of my yard for them, as I have two dogs and don't want them to have access to the torts. I really want to do a brick wall. Luckily I have a large yard to work with, as well as an underground sprinkler system, so these torts will have a nice spacious area with lots of good Florida moisture.

I am a nervous mommy because I've never had such large reptiles before. I have been wanting to get tortoises for a long time, though, and have done extensive research, so I am excited!

 

[EchoTheLeoTort]

if you have questions on care let us know and we will be glad to help. Congrats on the redfoots, they are a cute and great species.

 

[allegraf]

Feel free to pm me if you have any questions. I am in South Florida and keep all my adults outside and have done so for years. Congrats.

 

[wellington]

Congrats, can't wait to see pics. The only thing I can warn you about is the brick wall. Although lots of us have them, me included, I have noticed with my own and others of the forum, that the torts will walk the border line and scrape their shells against the ruff brick. I will be changing mine out for this reason. I don't think it will cause any big problems, just cosmetic scrapes and possible gouges.

 

[FLGirl41]

Thanks for the congrats, everyone. I'm certainly very excited to bring them home. Wow, wellington I didn't consider that. I definitely don't want them getting hurt. My other thought was some sort of wood fence, which I might lean towards now that I've heard that about the brick wall.