I'm new to TF & have many questions. My husband found a Russian Tortoise in the middle of our backyard about a month & a half ago. How it got in our fenced in yard is still an utter mystery to us. We tried to locate it's original owners with no success. Because we are such huge animal lovers, we decided to adopt him (we really don't know the sex just guessing). Never thought we'd get attached to a tortoise but he's so adorable with such a cute personality that we couldn't just leave him to fend for himself. Whoever had him before must've taken great care of him because the vet gave him a clean bill of health (fecal test was also clean). We named him Tortolini (a name we figured is somewhat unisex if later we find out that he is really a she-lol). I've been trying to educate myself about RTs but there's so much conflicting information on the net so here I am. Now that the intro is done, here are my questions...how do you determine the sex & age? The reptile vet at VCA Animal Hospital was not able to determine his sex or age. He is 5" long & 4 1/2" wide. Do they or don't they over-eat? Do you feed him everyday or every other day & what is the proper portion of food? His diet consists of dandelions, various kale & other mixed leafy greens that everyone mentions. Tortolini sleeps facing his food dish or actually gets in his dish to sleep everyday around the same time to let us know he's hungry. And if you're late feeding him, he starts scratching at the glass. Is that normal? If he has a UVA/UVB lamp in his veranium, does he still need to go outside everyday? The guy at the reptile store told me to sprinkle a little calcium powder w/d3 over his food whenever I feed him but now I'm reading that they can actually OD on calcium. How do you know if that has happened? His skin looks much greener to me now then when we first got him-is that normal? Lastly, I've heard three different sounds come out of his mouth. One is the sucking in air sound that people talk about here on TF but the other two sounds are not mentioned. A very high pitched squeak sound once when I took him outside & a soft high pitched sound (almost like a dog barking-arf, arf, arf) one day when I put him in his warm water soak. I've only heard these 2 sounds once...what do they mean? Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated!
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