hi, i joined this forum yesterday, so far its been very cool reading all the posts. galileo is my 6 year old male. hes been w/ me a little over 4 years now. he was the size of the palm of my hand back then, i was able to rub noses w/ him until about a year ago, this year i can only carry him on my hip. i recently enlarged his yard and im fully expecting him to double his yearly weight gain of about 5#s per for the last 4 years. he was 19#s at his last years vet check and hes about due for another one, hes now 26#s and hes only been full time grazing for 2 mos. its like walking w/ dinosaurs, i love it. hes a very good boy, doesnt go after toes, doesnt ram and i never hand fed him, but he does love having his head and chin rubbed. hes lmy guard tort, his fenceline is right next door to my front door and whenever someone comes down, hes right there checking it out. with the new yard setup, theres no fence between my sliders and his yard, its so cool to look out the door and see him w/o a fence to look through. we live in the santa monica mtns of los angeles, very great place to raise a tort full time outside. his official home is a heated deck box inside a separate caged area, we have coyotes. i aint letting no mangy dog get my guy ;o) i still use a substrate, its been the large chunked coconut bark lately, easy to clean, always smells good and since galis not a digger at least hes got something to throw around, make a nest, whatever. we got a good plan going on here so far. galileo came to me because he was so cute when the size of a quarter at the pet store, the little girl next door had to have 2. short story, she lost interest, the little ones needed a home and asked me, never in my wildest dreams did i ever think i wanted a tort. marilyn, the 2nd tort didnt make it, died a week after she came to live w/ me. gali got sick too, really sick, i broke my ankle within a month of getting them, couldnt walk/work for 6 mos., had time to focus full time on getting gali well again and in the process, I FELL IN LOVE. galileo & speing big smiles