Enclosure Suggestions Needed

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prettybird

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Hello, we have Russian Tortoises. We started out with two and now we have 14 with more on the way! My husband likes to keep them all so they are quickly outgrowing their enclosure. I would like some suggestions as to an easy enclosure to make and what size do you think they would need? Also, we live in Oregon so they have to be inside most of the year, but what kind of temperatures can they safely stay outside in? We currently have an outdoor one and an indoor one but they are both getting too small so we need to make new ones. We are also possibly moving soon so something quick and simple for now would be good until we move and make something more permanent. Any suggestions would be great! Thanks.
 

Seiryu

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prettybird said:
Hello, we have Russian Tortoises. We started out with two and now we have 14 with more on the way! My husband likes to keep them all so they are quickly outgrowing their enclosure. I would like some suggestions as to an easy enclosure to make and what size do you think they would need? Also, we live in Oregon so they have to be inside most of the year, but what kind of temperatures can they safely stay outside in? We currently have an outdoor one and an indoor one but they are both getting too small so we need to make new ones. We are also possibly moving soon so something quick and simple for now would be good until we move and make something more permanent. Any suggestions would be great! Thanks.

Wow, 14 tortoises!

How big are they? I think it's safe to assume, unless you can provide a HUGE enclosure, you're going to end up needing multiple enclosures. But keeping them all together as adults is probably not going to happen.

Bigger is always better, and I do not have a russian. But I'd say a 6x8 ft as a minimum (per tortoise, adults) is about right.

With 14 though, you're going to be in for a lot of enclosure building and you're going to need a lot of room.
 

prettybird

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The biggest one (which is the one that has laid all the eggs) is about 7" long and the male is around 5" long and the babies are getting to be around 4" and under. Why can't they all live together as adults? How many would you say could live together? Thanks!
 

Seiryu

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prettybird said:
The biggest one (which is the one that has laid all the eggs) is about 7" long and the male is around 5" long and the babies are getting to be around 4" and under. Why can't they all live together as adults? How many would you say could live together? Thanks!

Depends really on their personalities. Some people get lucky and their tortoises get along just fine. Others however notice that some are just way too aggressive towards each other.

A lot of aggressiveness happens when there is a male to female ratio that has too many males with too little females. Another thing is not enough space. You probably couldn't even get away with a 30x30 foot enlclosure with 14 adult russians. But this is just speculation on my part.

I am making a 15x12 ft minimum enclosure for my Leopard (He'll be 10-14"once full grown). Which is a little bit bigger than an adult russian, and I would feel somewhat bad if that's all the room he had, and this is just one tortoise.

And are you saying you had 2 adults breed and you are keeping the babies, which is where the new 12 russians came from? I don't think you'd want any of your babies breeding with the parents either, which they might try to do once they reach sexual maturity. And this is another reason to separate.

I need to take off though. But I would also post your living situation so someone can assist you as well.

Do you have a yard, if so how much room for enclosures. Do you live in an apartment, house and how much room in the house. If you move, are you going into an apartment, house with a yard etc.
 

prettybird

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We have a different male now than we used to have. Around half of the new ones came from the first male and half came from the current male (I think), they all have the same mom. How old do turtles get before they will start to try to breed? They are all getting along so far except the adult male tries to bite the adult female.

We currently live in a house with a basement where we keep the turtles now and we do have a back yard. Not a huge one though (probably around 30x30 for the back yard). We also have chickens in the back yard. Can turtles and chickens be in the same yard? Our chicken free range during the day in the whole back yard. The chickens can't get into the current outdoor turtle enclosure, but if they can be together, we could have more room for everyone. We don't know for sure where we are moving but are hoping to move into a house with more land as we are outgrowing our current location in more ways than one!

What kind of weather conditions can they be outside in? We don't put them out too much now because living in Oregon, the weather isn't always that good. Right now it's still been in the 60's during the day and the 40's at night and it's been raining a lot still but it should warm up soon.

If we put them out in the back yard, do you think we would have to put something down on underground so they can't dig out? Or how far down would they dig?

Thanks!
 

Floof

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If your husband is insistent about keeping all of them, you should at least separate the males and females... Males will very aggressively breed the females once sexually mature, and you'll quickly be overrun by babies. If you don't have enough females for the male(s) to cycle through, all the "love" can stress the females out to the point of illness; and if there are too many males in the same enclosure (though they may be perfectly fine without females around), the males will fight. If you post some good shots of everyone's tails and undersides, the people here should be able to help sex them all.

I'm on the Washington coast, so I know what you mean about the weather... I try to get my Russian out whenever the temps are above 55-60*F and it's not TOO wet (aka raining). Of course, she has a nice heat lamp to come in to when she gets in from outside, and doesn't ever get outside until a couple hours after her lights have come on (so she has some time to warm up before going out). This seems to work quite well for her... On 60 degree days, she'll eat her weight in weeds, do rounds around her 16x8 ft enclosure, and try digging out through the corners at least twice--so, obviously, it must not be too cold out there!
 

-ryan-

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I don't want to tell you what to do with your animals, but doesn't it seem like it would be beneficial to sell some of the young ones. Not only can you get some money from them (to spend on new enclosures), you will be providing the hobby with some very important CB animals. The more you keep, the less care each will get. That is why I have cut myself off :) I understand if you don't want to get rid of any of the ones that you have kept so far, but at least consider the idea, and definitely consider selling any that you hatch in the future. You are going to need a ton of enclosures to adequately house them.

Got any pictures of them in their current enclosure?
 

PeanutbuttER

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prettybird said:
We also have chickens in the back yard. Can turtles and chickens be in the same yard? Our chicken free range during the day in the whole back yard. The chickens can't get into the current outdoor turtle enclosure, but if they can be together, we could have more room for everyone.

I'm just guessing but I would think chickens and tortoises would probably be okay together. I doubt the tortoises would harass the chickens and as long as you watch the chickens and make sure they're not picking on any tortoises you're probably okay. I kept chickens as a kid and mine were all free range and I never had any problems with them harassing each other nor other animals (they were kept around cats, dogs, ducks, etc.) My neighbor's free range chickens though would peck each other basically to death. They were these really ugly bald nasty things. If you've got chickens like that then I wouldn't trust them around any torts personally.

I'd be surprised if there were any issues of disease transfer or anything like that between the two.

Perhaps someone else on here has actual experience with it though?
 

prettybird

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I guess he is willing to consider selling some of them if he is sure they will go to a good home. (We don't want them to go to someone who will just put them in a 10 gallon tank and then never take care of them)

We will try to seperate the males and females for now.

How old do they have to be before they become sexually mature?

(Sorry I don't have any pics right now of their enclosures or them.)
 
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