Can't Decide...

[Sleemie]

I really want to get a baby tortoise, but I just can't figure out the housing situation. Although I live in a warmer climate, Texas, to my understanding none of the smaller tortoise species would be able to handle the winter weather when it gets in the 50s at night and a couple of times during the season maybe the 30s, so seems like an outdoor pen isn't viable. I'm not going to the trouble to run electricity out there. I was pretty much all set to build an indoor pen and give him/her lots of time in the backyard during the day, but then it dawned on me that cleaning the pen seems impractical because there's going to be lots of dirt, or whatever your substrate, and plants, etc that it would be too much to totally remove all of that and toss it out and start clean all over again. And if you don't do that, eventually it's going to start smelling.

Soooo, any advice on how I can keep a tortoise given those constraints?

 

[Tom]

Make a large indoor enclosure and another large one outside. Use the outdoor enclosure during fair weather and bring the tortoise inside during cold weather and at night.

If you soak the tortoise regularly it will poop and pee in the soaking water, and the indoor enclosure will seldom need cleaning. I remove uneaten food daily, dump rinse and refill the waters, and soak most days. I run the same substrate for years.

 

[Sleemie]

Make a large indoor enclosure and another large one outside. Use the outdoor enclosure during fair weather and bring the tortoise inside during cold weather and at night.

If you soak the tortoise regularly it will poop and pee in the soaking water, and the indoor enclosure will seldom need cleaning. I remove uneaten food daily, dump rinse and refill the waters, and soak most days. I run the same substrate for years.

Thanks, Tom. I'm still learning this stuff and the idea of daily soaking seems to be beyond what I'm finding in the standard care sheets online. I'm assuming you put them in a container they can't get out of like some kind of plastic thing maybe. And how long do you soak? I'm also assuming the water is pretty shallow. What are the benefits of soaking other than stimulating bowel movements.

 

[Yvonne G]

Get a tortoise that hibernates/brumates. That way when the weather gets too cold outside, he will brumate until the weather warms up again in the Spring. A Russian springs to mind.

 

[dmmj]

Russians always spring to mind. Soaking keeps the animal hydrated and healthy