Benja28
Member
Okey so if i understood correctly, roaming outside is good and safe but, roaming inside my house is dangerous.
Help for a newbie owner. (general care & routines)
- Thread starter Benja28
- Start date
Ya for some reason the vid won't post so I'll take a pic
I've never had to build an outdoor enclosure for him he has a hole he sleeps in at night and I cover him with his box at night
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Ya I let mr t roam the house twice and he pooped and peed all over so that never happened again lol
Any responsible tortoise owner has learned enough either by their own experience or the experience of others, NOT ever to allow your tortoise to roam freely in the house. The tortoise should have its own suitable enclosure either inside or outside, ensuring that it is as safe as possible from many different possible hazards such as overheating, poison, predators, crush accidents, escape, cold temperature! Your tortoise is not in the wild, he is with you and he is dependent on you to keep him as healthy and safe as a captive tortoise can be! And that's why this forum is here - to try to teach, and to learn, how to keep our tortoises that we love so much.
All of of this is TERRIBLE tortoise advice. This is all the old wrong info. PLEASE STOP repeating this harmful information.
Regular soaks keep them hydrated, and it is fine for them to evacuate their Bowles in the soak water. This keeps the enclosure cleaner. Not soaking them is a good way to create a bladder stone that will eventually kill them in some cases.
Sand should NEVER be used in tortoise substrate. It is a skin and eye irritant and a serious impaction risk.
Store bought bagged soil should never be used as tortoise substrate. It is made from composted yard waste and all sorts of other weird things and there is no way to know what is in it. It could be something toxic or dangerous. Soil makers to not intend for small animals to be living on or in their product.
Plastic plants will be eaten and can cause impaction.
Baby tortoise of all species need higher humidity and all ages of Russians can benefit from a humid hide.
12-14 inches is way too close for the commonly recommend HO UV tubes.
And finally, we see several deaths and injuries here every year from people letting their tortoises run loose. It is not safe and cannot be made safe no matter how good your intentions are and how closely you intend to supervise. We see around one disaster every month, I see more disasters at my vet friend's clinics, and those are just the ones we hear about. Most people don't post about it when they accidentally kill, maim, or lose their tortoise.
Before you go off typing a rude argumentative reply to this, understand something: YOU HAVE BEEN READING AND WATCHING THE SAME WRONG INFO AS ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD. Its not your fault that you don't understand these things that I am saying, but instead of getting mad at me for red-pilling you, get mad at all the YouTubers and face bookers that gave you all the wrong info in the first place. I am not trying to make an enemy. I am trying to HELP you and your tortoise before disaster strikes and you learn these lessons the hard way as so many people, including me, have had to learn them before you.
You are new here. Please take the time to read this. It will explain a lot about what is happening right now:
Info For New People. Please Read This First.
Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...
tortoiseforum.org
Hello and welcome Benja28. This is a public forum and people can say what they want within reason, but please disregard the terrible advice you have been given on this thread, and read the one that SinLA linked for you. There is also a temperate species care sheet for you at the bottom of that one, and a heating and lighting breakdown.
Questions are welcome. Our goal is to help you avoid disaster and not make all the common mistakes that most people make.
So some of the biggest tortoise breeders and keepers in the USA are wrong about adding 10-20 % sand mixed with soil? You are freaking clueless garden state tortoise kamp keenen and a multitude of other keepers and breeder recommend this method seeings most tortoises come from dry arid Sandy places no one said anything about giving him a pure sand substrate I'm gonna stick with the people who have been raising and breeding turtles and tortoises for 30+ years over you any day seeings for the last 4-5 years I've used this method and never had a problem but you go ahead and think what you want ur just as bad as the people who say it's not safe to leave the turtles and tortoises outside you think your way is the only way and that makes you ignorant to the fact
And everyone I know with Russians uses the same method yet none of us have had any problems yet ur claiming it's bad for them🤣 turns out this place is a joke just like reddit some of you all think you know everything and everyone else is doing it wrong unless their doing it the way you do and all the major tortoises breeders and keepers are wrong according to you cause they have yt channels that about sums up ur opinion bye nowAll of of this is TERRIBLE tortoise advice. This is all the old wrong info. PLEASE STOP repeating this harmful information.
Regular soaks keep them hydrated, and it is fine for them to evacuate their Bowles in the soak water. This keeps the enclosure cleaner. Not soaking them is a good way to create a bladder stone that will eventually kill them in some cases.
Sand should NEVER be used in tortoise substrate. It is a skin and eye irritant and a serious impaction risk.
Store bought bagged soil should never be used as tortoise substrate. It is made from composted yard waste and all sorts of other weird things and there is no way to know what is in it. It could be something toxic or dangerous. Soil makers to not intend for small animals to be living on or in their product.
Plastic plants will be eaten and can cause impaction.
Baby tortoise of all species need higher humidity and all ages of Russians can benefit from a humid hide.
12-14 inches is way too close for the commonly recommend HO UV tubes.
And finally, we see several deaths and injuries here every year from people letting their tortoises run loose. It is not safe and cannot be made safe no matter how good your intentions are and how closely you intend to supervise. We see around one disaster every month, I see more disasters at my vet friend's clinics, and those are just the ones we hear about. Most people don't post about it when they accidentally kill, maim, or lose their tortoise.
Before you go off typing a rude argumentative reply to this, understand something: YOU HAVE BEEN READING AND WATCHING THE SAME WRONG INFO AS ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD. Its not your fault that you don't understand these things that I am saying, but instead of getting mad at me for red-pilling you, get mad at all the YouTubers and face bookers that gave you all the wrong info in the first place. I am not trying to make an enemy. I am trying to HELP you and your tortoise before disaster strikes and you learn these lessons the hard way as so many people, including me, have had to learn them before you.
You are new here. Please take the time to read this. It will explain a lot about what is happening right now:
Info For New People. Please Read This First.
Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...
YES! That is EXACTLY what I am saying. I have been keeping and breeding for over 30 years too. The difference between me and the ones giving the wrong advice is that I have been doing experimentation for decades to discover what works best and why. Kenan makes tons of mistakes and many of his animals die because of this. He is not a good example. Chris is a good dude and what he does works well enough for him, but you don't know the problems he has had over the years, and you and he both don't see what I see on the operating tables of my tortoise vet friends.
You can bury your head in the sand and remain willfully ignorant, or you can learn something new from someone who has been keeping tortoises a lot longer than you or the people you mentioned. One way or another, you will learn. Will it be before your tortoise is dead or lost, or after?
Hello and welcome to TFO. I have a little Russian also. My little guy is quite a few years older than yours. He's probably around 20 years old or so. I wish I had found this site a lot sooner than I did. Since you have a juvenile I'll leave all that up to the experts as I've never raised a baby and they need different care than my adult. Best wishes for a fun and happy life with your little one.🤗
Wandering outside is great for the tortoises, as long as there are proper barriers so they can't wander too far and get into situations or plants that are harmful for them, and so that predators can't get to them.
If there are barriers to keep them contained, isn't that an enclosure? Wandering outside in favorable weather inside a large outdoor enclosure is great. Wandering loose will lead to one of several disasters.
Right, that's what I mean. A previous comment mentioned letting the tortoise wander and they were getting into the neighbor's yard. That's not an enclosure and not safe...
