Hello from Canada!

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ColleenR

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Hi everyone! I'm a smalltown girl from Ontario, Canada. I hope to purchase my first tortoise very soon, and am planning on building an enclosure for it as soon as possible. I hope to find either a Redfoot, Egyptian or Russian tortoise.

I'm finding it difficult to find a breeder, so far. I've been loading up on as much information as I can, though, and am trying to integrate myself into the community as much as I can.
 

ColleenR

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Thank you for the warm welcomes everyone! After doing a bit more research into sizes, I've changed the breed of tortoise I want. I would like a Hermann's, Greek, Russian or Egyptian. Redfoots are beautiful, but they apparently get a little to big for my house. I can't keep anything more than 10 or so inches.
 

Isa

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Welcome to the forum :)
I live on Mtl, Qc, I know it can be very hard to find a breeder. In my opinion, one of your best call is to go take a look at the Canadian Reptile Breeders expo. Here is the website http://www.reptilebreedersexpo.ca/
There are a couple of shows in Ontario.
I do not know why but it is not working right now.
If you need any help, feel free to ask :)
 

Yvonne G

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Hi Colleen:

Welcome to the forum!!

I know that you are getting a tortoise for in the house, but please understand that they really do much better when allowed to be outside as much as the weather permits.
 

ColleenR

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Thank you very much for the advice, Isa. I'm pretty sure that's going to be what I'll have to do. I was hoping to get one sooner, but that should be fine.

emysemys: I will definitely be housing them outside for as much time as possible! I'm building two enclosures, one for outside and one for inside. :)
 

JourneyTort

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ColleenR said:
Hi everyone! I'm a smalltown girl from Ontario, Canada. I hope to purchase my first tortoise very soon, and am planning on building an enclosure for it as soon as possible. I hope to find either a Redfoot, Egyptian or Russian tortoise.

I'm finding it difficult to find a breeder, so far. I've been loading up on as much information as I can, though, and am trying to integrate myself into the community as much as I can.

Welcome to the forum. I can tell you right now, generally the only torts you will see at that expo will be redfoots and leopards, you 'may' get lucky and see a Russian as they are more popular lately but I have never seen one yet. You will also see Sulcata. If you can hold off and wait and do some research I think you may be able to find a Russian, there are no Egyptians in Canada that I have ever seen (legally). But it seems that you can get whatever you want if you stick around long enough!!

There was a forum member from Ontario that had a breeding group of Russians and was either hoping for eggs this spring or had eggs. Search on here under Russians. Also I have seen a few Russians on Kijiji in the past, check there.

Also, here's a thought, you should contact some of the vendors to see what species they will be bringing to the expo because generally there are only a handful of torts at the expo (literally) and they are gone as soon as the doors open it seems.

Good luck and with patience I think you should be able to find a small tort in Canada.
 

ColleenR

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Thank you for the advice, JourneyTort. I'm going to hold through, trust me, I really to want to be a tortoise owner. I may have to comprimise a bit of my space to make more room for a Redfoot. (Which I'm willing to do, definitely. I was just hoping to be able to keep a smaller tortoise. Redfoots are gorgeous.)
 

Scirish

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Welcome! Nice to see another Canadian! I have a young redfoot so he doesn't take up too much space yet. That is something else to remember Tortoises don't grow as fast as other pets (dogs) so you will have lots of time to up-size an enclosure.
 

JourneyTort

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ColleenR said:
Oh really? How old is your redfoot? Do you know what his growth rate has been so far?

One other thing you should take into consideration are the requirements for each species of tort you are looking at. Redfoots are totally different than Russians as far as care.

If the adult size is not ideal for you then really, my opinion is that you shouldn't even look at that species. You should be able to provide adequate enclosure of an adult before you get your tort, they don't stay small for long.

If you have your mind set on a Russian or similar don't settle for a species that you didn't originally want. Look at how many redfoots are for sale (re-homes) in our area after 1 - 2 years. To me that is a lot considering we do not have as many tort keepers in our country.

Just my .02 cents.
 

ColleenR

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JourneyTort said:
ColleenR said:
Oh really? How old is your redfoot? Do you know what his growth rate has been so far?

One other thing you should take into consideration are the requirements for each species of tort you are looking at. Redfoots are totally different than Russians as far as care.

If the adult size is not ideal for you then really, my opinion is that you shouldn't even look at that species. You should be able to provide adequate enclosure of an adult before you get your tort, they don't stay small for long.

If you have your mind set on a Russian or similar don't settle for a species that you didn't originally want. Look at how many redfoots are for sale (re-homes) in our area after 1 - 2 years. To me that is a lot considering we do not have as many tort keepers in our country.

Just my .02 cents.

I actually think I might have found a Russian. :D

I've been taking the adult size into consideration (and planning for the biggest size they can possibly be) and I think that I could provide for a Redfoot, but I won't be getting one. I'm really just curious.

I'm almost certain I'll be housing a Russian tortoise.

Hopefully. Cross your fingers! :D

I'm going to start collecting what I need for the tortoise enclosure tonight, I think. Or atleast drawing up plans.
 

cueboy007

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which town are you from?
You should go to reptile expo in Feb, see what they have.
Reptilescanada.com has classified section, I've seen a few greek on there recently.
 

ColleenR

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I'm hoping to go to the reptiles expo. I live fairly close to Ottawa, so it's a bit far, but that's ok. I'm willing to make the drive.

Reptilescanada.com seems to have shut down it's registration. :/
 

JohnathanO

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Welcome

Reptilescanada.com has temporarily shut down its registration because of spammers, The last show I went to was in september, they had a couple of red foots, yellow foots, and greeks available. keep checking kijiji and maybe contact "port credit pet center" or "all reptiles" to see what they have available.

Good Luck.
 

tortoises101

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The last expo I went to was the November 28th expo. Port Credit Pets I remember had a russian and a few hermann's and greeks. I saw a 7" leopard tortoise being housed with a WC 5" russian tortoise. There seems to be redfoots and sulcatas popping up at random vendors, and there was a yellowfoot or two. All Reptiles also had a golden greek tortoise (though I went to their store and the tortoise was badly neglected).
The September 18th/19th expo had less tortoises, so it seems that we finally have some more breeders up here! :D
 
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