RhodaE
Member
We moved from CA to East TN two years ago along with our 30 yr old leopard tortoise, Fred. Thanks to the Tortoise Forum we were able to adapt to his new environment and he is doing well. The first couple months he was a little hot, he was panting for the first time! So we put in a shallow pond with a waterfall that he could wade through as he pleased. (At our former home he had a waterfall but no access to the koi pond.). Our new pond is about 6" deep. We fenced in our backyard and he marches around the perimeter and sleeps under shrubs. We planted grazing grasses and he eats those as well as my creeping jenny groundcover. He pushes furniture around and causes his usual mayhem and rams me whenever I'm working in the yard. We built an outdoor hut for his use on cool days which has a radiant heater inside. He is outside from about 11am until end of day, on warm non-stormy days. Most winter days, he is in his basement corral which features his old hut with light and radiant heater, substrate, and walls he can't climb over. When he can't graze outside I feed him kale, romaine, and carrot peels. He's a little crazy and he likes to show off when other people are here, like the petsitter...and he'll try to run down the waterfall and straight down into the pond. We keep a tracking device glued to his shell. When we first moved in, he got loose in that huge dark forest on the other side of the fence. With no tracker. My husband found him thank goodness. Tracker is now glued onto shell. I see lots of postings from people with baby tortoises so just thought I'd share an older tort's story!
