Hi! New to Tortoises, give me all your info!

[lwphinney]

Hi all! I have always loved tortoises but have never owned one. My husband surprised me today with two testudo tortoises for Christmas! They are a male and a female, I'm not sure of their age. He got them from Petsmart. We currently have them in a 40 gallon glass terrarium and I've since learned those aren't the best because they will keep trying to get out. If we buy some of the background stuff they use for aquariums and cover the bottom half would that help the situation? We plan to build an outdoor space for them, once winter is over, and let them stay in it during the day, since we have natural growing clover, thistle, and wild strawberries in our yard. I have already ordered some dried organic herbs to mix in with the grassland tortoise food we got from Petsmart. We have a basking light and a warming light, a log for them to hide under, and a water bowl. How are we doing so far?

 

[lwphinney]

Oh!! I forgot! I had a question. I know they need 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark. I stay up REALLY late at night as I have a second shift job and always sleep late in the morning. Do I need to cover their habitat with a blanket or something so the light in the room won't bother them?

 

[LaLaP]

Hi! And welcome to the forum. So first off "testudo" is a genus of tortoise and it includes several species like Russian, Greek, Hermanns, Marinated and Egyptian. The care for each of these is different so let's find out what kind of tortoises you have! Can you post photos of them?
Pet stores are notoriously bad at giving proper care advice especially for tortoises so you are probably about to find out that most of what they told you is wrong.
Unfortunately you should not keep 2 tortoises together. They are solitary creatures and will always compete for territory. One will become dominant and bully the other causing it to be stressed, stop eating and even become sickly. A male will also over-mate a female resulting in injuries.
To give advice on your enclosure it's best to show a photo of your set up. Also the temperatures are the most important factor. How are you measuring temps and what are they? Basking? Cool side? Night temps?
How many hours would the lights be on with your late nights? 14 is fine. 16 is probably ok as long as there are dark hides to retreat into.
Here is s link with some good info :
https://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/beginner-mistakes.45180/

When we know what species you have we can give you more specific care instructions.

 

[Ray--Opo]

Welcome be ready for a lot of new info. Chances are if you are going by what the pet store told you it is wrong. Like LaLap said pics of your torts and enclosure will help to get you on the right track.

 

[daniellenc]

Oh petsmart lol. Yes you have a lot to change but it’s all easy adjustments. Post pics of the little monsters because type of tortoise matters as mentioned.

The biggest change I can see is needing two large cages because torts aren’t herd animals and each will need its own separate 8x4 enclosure or something similar in size but cages stack well! I know they lived together at petsmart but keep in mind more animals die before being sold from stress, poor diet, and disease. Torts are territorial and having a buddy in their territory is stressful.

As soon as we know the species we can recommend proper lights, heat, and diet!

 

[lwphinney]

Hi! And welcome to the forum. So first off "testudo" is a genus of tortoise and it includes several species like Russian, Greek, Hermanns, Marinated and Egyptian. The care for each of these is different so let's find out what kind of tortoises you have! Can you post photos of them?
Pet stores are notoriously bad at giving proper care advice especially for tortoises so you are probably about to find out that most of what they told you is wrong.
Unfortunately you should not keep 2 tortoises together. They are solitary creatures and will always compete for territory. One will become dominant and bully the other causing it to be stressed, stop eating and even become sickly. A male will also over-mate a female resulting in injuries.
To give advice on your enclosure it's best to show a photo of your set up. Also the temperatures are the most important factor. How are you measuring temps and what are they? Basking? Cool side? Night temps?
How many hours would the lights be on with your late nights? 14 is fine. 16 is probably ok as long as there are dark hides to retreat into.
Here is s link with some good info :
https://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/beginner-mistakes.45180/

When we know what species you have we can give you more specific care instructions.

Oh boy...so many wrong things! Ok, first of all, I have included pictures of everything. There is a thermometer that came with the 40 gallon setup that measures temp and humidity. I put it on the warm side. They do have a warm side and a cool side. I put the water and the hiding spot on the cool side. I also put the UV light on the cool/basking side. My house gets down to about 66F at night. I have a warming pad that I turn on at night.

I called Petsmart and she said we could bring one of them back. I will take care of that after the Christmas rush. Which one should I keep? The male or the female?

I usually stay up until 2 or 3am. So if we turn on their lights at 9am, they would need to be turned off at 9pm. I think that's going well past 14 or 16 hours right?

Thanks for all your help!

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi, and welcome to the Forum!

Both tortoises show nice growth. Keep either or both. If you can afford to set up two enclosures, I'd keep them both. Then when the weather warms up and you can put them outside, build them a big enclosure with lots of plants and sight obstacles and they can both live in the same outdoor enclosure. But it has to be BIG!

 

[Bee62]

Congrats to two Russian tortoises. They are known to be very territorial so you have to keep them alone. But why do you want to bring one back to the pet shop ? I would buy another enclosure and keep both in different enclosures.

 

[lwphinney]

Congrats to two Russian tortoises. They are known to be very territorial so you have to keep them alone. But why do you want to bring one back to the pet shop ? I would buy another enclosure and keep both in different enclosures.

I don't have the space to put up two different enclosures : (

 

[Yvonne G]

Aw, bummer!

 

[Bee62]

I don't have the space to put up two different enclosures : (

That`s a pity !
Maybe the enclosures in two different rooms ?

 

[Ray--Opo]

You can put the light on a timer and you need to get a digital thermometer and humidastat. The type you have are not accurate. Also if the UVB light is the coil type you need to get the flouresnt tube type. The coil type are hard on their eyes. Not sure about the substrate maybe someone else can chime in on that. Also a temp gun works great for knowing temps in different areas of the enclosure.
I did the same as you having a pet store owner setting me up with everything I need. LOL
Until I found this forum I was doing it all wrong.You think you would be getting the correct info at the pet store but more times than not you don't. Maybe you could stack the enclosures on top of each other until you can get them outside. Maybe you could keep them both.
Good luck and keep us posted

 

[LaLaP]

Beautiful Russians! I have 2 Russians myself and they are wonderful torts

Here is the care sheet:
https://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/russian-tortoise-care-sheet.80698/

Read this over and ask any questions you might have.

Sorry to hear that you can't keep both. That will be a tough choice but better than keeping them together.

 

[Gillian M]

A very warm welcome to the forum!

Cute torts. God bless.

 

[Ben02]

You could always make a double decker tort box

 

[lwphinney]

Beautiful Russians! I have 2 Russians myself and they are wonderful torts

Here is the care sheet:
https://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/russian-tortoise-care-sheet.80698/

Read this over and ask any questions you might have.

Sorry to hear that you can't keep both. That will be a tough choice but better than keeping them together.

Thank you! That care sheet was extremely helpful! Another question, we brought them home on Sunday, it's now Tuesday, and they haven't eaten yet. We've offered them grassland tortoise food mixed with sliced carrots, a blackberry, and a raspberry. We even went out to our yard and pulled some weeds! They have both poo'd twice, but haven't eaten anything. Is it just them getting used to a new home, or is there something wrong? Also, not sure if this matters, but it's winter here.

 

[lwphinney]

You can put the light on a timer and you need to get a digital thermometer and humidastat. The type you have are not accurate. Also if the UVB light is the coil type you need to get the flouresnt tube type. The coil type are hard on their eyes. Not sure about the substrate maybe someone else can chime in on that. Also a temp gun works great for knowing temps in different areas of the enclosure.
I did the same as you having a pet store owner setting me up with everything I need. LOL
Until I found this forum I was doing it all wrong.You think you would be getting the correct info at the pet store but more times than not you don't. Maybe you could stack the enclosures on top of each other until you can get them outside. Maybe you could keep them both.
Good luck and keep us posted

I will get a digital thermometer and humidastat ASAP. The UVB light is the fluorescent tube type, so we are good there. Thank you for all the help!

 

[Yvonne G]

Thank you! That care sheet was extremely helpful! Another question, we brought them home on Sunday, it's now Tuesday, and they haven't eaten yet. We've offered them grassland tortoise food mixed with sliced carrots, a blackberry, and a raspberry. We even went out to our yard and pulled some weeds! They have both poo'd twice, but haven't eaten anything. Is it just them getting used to a new home, or is there something wrong? Also, not sure if this matters, but it's winter here.

Go back and re-read that care sheet, paying particular attention the the food section. None of the things you offered those tortoises was something they would eat. They don't eat grass, so the Grassland tortoise diet wouldn't appeal to them. They don't eat fruit, and shouldn't eat fruit. It causes a parasite bloom in their gut. Russian tortoises eat broad leaf greens, weeds and plants. If you offer them some escarole or endive I think they'll eat. For weeds look for milk weed, dandelion, fillarree, clover, etc.

 

[lwphinney]

Go back and re-read that care sheet, paying particular attention the the food section. None of the things you offered those tortoises was something they would eat. They don't eat grass, so the Grassland tortoise diet wouldn't appeal to them. They don't eat fruit, and shouldn't eat fruit. It causes a parasite bloom in their gut. Russian tortoises eat broad leaf greens, weeds and plants. If you offer them some escarole or endive I think they'll eat. For weeds look for milk weed, dandelion, fillarree, clover, etc.

I'm confused. The care sheet says this: "You can also feed them grape, mulberry and hibiscus leaves, tender young spineless opuntia cactus pads, Mazuri tortoise chow and ZooMed Grassland tortoise food. Alternating and mixing up any of these foods will give your russian a good diet and meet its nutritional needs"

That's the food we have, the ZooMed Grassland tortoise food?

 

[Yvonne G]

"Alternating and mixing up any of these foods." It doesn't say to only feed them Zoo Med Grassland tortoise food. It says to mix it up with greens/leaves. Also, you need to soak it in warm water to soften it.