Allow inside?

[Ashly]

We just adopted a desert tortoise from AZ Game and Fish, hes about 25 years old. He is super social and seems to be doing great. Today I left my backdoor open accidentally and within a couple of min I noticed he was in my living room! Is it ok for him to come inside every so often for short amounts of time. We only have a cat and she is declawed and stays upstairs. My worry would be him coming from 90+ degrees outside to inside which is around 75. Thanks.

 

[mike taylor]

I would have to say no . Not only the temperature will be a problem, but what if he eats something off the floor . Welcome to TFO

 

[jay surfs]

We bring our CaDesTort inside often. He cruises around, always following me around the house. He even has two favorite spots to hide in.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

No.
There are a TON of horror stories about tortoises being well supervised roaming around inside of a home and being accidentally killed or horribly injured or eating something it finds and being injured....

 

[MPRC]

Generally people advise against this because of the insane number of variables that can injure or cause illness in the home.

 

[Yvonne G]

Welcome to the Forum, Ashly!

I vote no also. It's a whole lot colder on the floor of your house than is comfortable for a cold blooded tortoise, not to mention all the bad things he might eat or come into contact with.

 

[Tom]

Tortoises belong in tortoise enclosures. The risk of injury, illness or impaction is very high when they are allowed to roam in houses.

 

[BeeBee*BeeLeaves]

Agree with the no-nos. That same nosey nose that makes your lil social busy body tortoise explore inside could be what gets him into trouble if he finds something you missed seeing. Safer is always better than sorry. Thank you for adopting/hosting this sweet guy and giving a home. Great for him and great for your family/kids. Sounds like he has a great personality. Woo hoo! And also glad you found this site. So many tort geek peeps to help out and to learn from! Yay!

 

[ascott]

We just adopted a desert tortoise from AZ Game and Fish, hes about 25 years old. He is super social and seems to be doing great. Today I left my backdoor open accidentally and within a couple of min I noticed he was in my living room! Is it ok for him to come inside every so often for short amounts of time. We only have a cat and she is declawed and stays upstairs. My worry would be him coming from 90+ degrees outside to inside which is around 75. Thanks.

It is a tempting treat and totally selfish to have them pop in from time to time for a visit...I understand. A tortoise enclosure can also have several micro climates to offer the tort options and that would be the preferred local.

I use to have two of the Desert Torts here that I had to keep up for an entire year to assure of their health, they resided in my office when I use to work at a park...the office had a door that led out to their own private patio/yard ....they eventually learned that the door was the all wonderful passageway from inside where is was cool to outside where it was sunny and then vice versa in the cooler months, they learned also to tuck their head in and ram the door to let you know they wanted through ....very unconventional but it was necessary and effective at the time...one was a climber and I would come in to work some mornings to find the climber up on the copier...so eventually I had to relocate the copier to the floor so there was less of an injury issue....also when the old man came to live with me he had to have a minor surgery and therefore had to be house bound for a few weeks so no flies would lay maggots in the healing spot...so he would hang out in my sons room for the sunny room and then would shuffle his way down the hall to the living room where he enjoyed the coolness in the coldest room due to the air conditioning running....now, the dogs were not pleased during this time...I don't ever let them near the tortoise without a barrier so they were limited during his roaming time....he also had a heating station in my bedroom where he slept during the night...and hung out during the day when no one was home....I don't have carpet so there was not an issue when from time to time he left gifts....ewww. Was the best that could be done for a full sized CDT on lock down for a few weeks...

 

[JoesMum]

Joe gets inside if he can... his climbing expertise to get up the steps is good. I try to keep him out, but every now and then the barrier is down and you find poop on the carpet, or him wandering round the kitchen.

I discourage it:
1. I value my carpets and rugs
2. There's too much that he could attempt to eat that isn't food. I don't want him to eat something that's harmful.

Tortoises are only house pets in a proper enclosure with safe substrate and proper lamps.