*insert snazzy, eye-catching title here*

[Hurricane]

Now that I've got your attention, hi! My name's Rosie (or at least that's what I like to go by online) and I'm a teenage girl from southern California who is a proud owner of a russian tortoise I don't know how old she is, because I was bad and got her from a Petsmart (don't worry, I know better now!) so of course they didn't know anything about her :/ Anyways, her full name is Hurricane (hence my username) ...Wait For It... Lorriebelle (it's a long story), but we just call her Lorrie for... obvious reasons xD I found this site while doing research on how to take care of her, and it's already helped me a ton! I've had her for almost a year now, so I'm definitely still pretty new to owning a tortoise, and so if you have any advice please let me know!

Here's a picture of her

 

[wellington]

Hello and Welcome

 

[lkwagner]

Welcome. Do you have any pics of her enclosure?

 

[Zamric]

Welcome to the Forum Rosie and Hurricane Lorriebelle!

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Rosie:

Welcome to the Forum!

 

[Jacqui]

*waves* Hi and welcome! First off, you did nothing wrong with buying your tortoise from Petsmart. What caused you to decide to get a tortoise, let a lone a Russian?

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

Hello Rosie welcome to the TFO from AZ you did nothing wrong you got the
Tort out of their as soon as you could and in to your good care as soon as you could didn't you ? That's a good thing .
So be proud of your job ! Have a good day

 

[stinax182]

hey Rosie, welcome to the forum! she's lucky to have been found by you Russian tortoises have such great personalities and are fairly easy to care for.

 

[Hurricane]

Oh wow, hi everyone! I wasn't expecting to get so many responses, thank you so much xD
Oh whew, it's good to know I didn't royally mess up by buying her from Petsmart- I've heard so many cases of people saying that that's a very bad thing to do since they're not in the best condition a lot of the time, but I agree that it was a good thing I got Lorrie out of there. She was actually one of the luckier tortoises though- she had her own tank to herself that was actually big enough for her, unlike the six russians I saw crammed into a tank that wouldn't fit one tortoise at a Petco once But at the same time, the tank was obviously for turtles and not tortoises, as it had a bunch of shallow water in about 3/4ths of it, and I'm pretty sure it was at the wrong humidity too.

Welcome. Do you have any pics of her enclosure?

Here you go! A local pet shop helped set it up, as well as boarding Lorrie overnight while it was being done, telling us her gender, and making sure we knew everything there was to know about owning a tortoise! It was amazing how much help they were, actually- they actually cared about the animals If you're in the area, you should definitely go check them out! I know it sounds like I'm advertising, I just really like their store and they were so helpful!
If you have any suggestions about her enclosure I would love to hear them!

*waves* Hi and welcome! First off, you did nothing wrong with buying your tortoise from Petsmart. What caused you to decide to get a tortoise, let a lone a Russian?

I was actually watching a video on YouTube, and it had a running joke in it about 'turtles named Lawrence on FaceBook' so I was sitting there thinking, "You know, turtles are really cute, and it's almost Christmas. I'm sure it couldn't hurt to ask for one!" so I went and, expecting my mom to say no, asked my mom for one and was taken completely by surprise when she immediately said yes! I ran off and did research for like two weeks straight before we finally started shopping for a turtle in January. My mom ended up saying instead of a turtle we should get a tortoise, since a turtle would take a lot of work to keep the tank clean as well as a ton of expensive equipment, plus she was worried it would smell xD I was hesitant about it until she showed me a pamphlet on russian tortoises- they were small, adorable, didn't eat meat (I'm a vegetarian so it's nice to have pets that I don't have to handle meat for, ha ha), lived forever, and apparently made great beginner pets, so of course I said yes

Oh whoops, this post is pretty long xD Oh well!

 

[lkwagner]

Nice enclosure. Are those rabbit pellets? I would change that out for coco coir or something to dig in

 

[Hurricane]

Yeah, my mom likes the rabbit pellets because they're easy to replace, but I'll see if I can convince her to switch to coco coir. Lorrie's always digging at the corners, especially in the back corner next to her hide (the same corner she was hiding in when I took the picture) so I think getting something nicer to dig in would be good for her Thank you!

 

[oliviaTORTOISE]

What's wrong with pet smart? Same as you I got mine from there and she is also a Russian

 

[wellington]

Didn't notice the rabbit pellets. Tell mom they have to go. They are not good for the tortoise, in fact the worse you could use and it is about what's best for the tortoise.
Coconut coir, reptile bark, cypress mulch, orchard bark, dirt. Lots of healthy choices too choose from.

 

[lkwagner]

Yeah, my mom likes the rabbit pellets because they're easy to replace, but I'll see if I can convince her to switch to coco coir. Lorrie's always digging at the corners, especially in the back corner next to her hide (the same corner she was hiding in when I took the picture) so I think getting something nicer to dig in would be good for her Thank you!

And even though it's a Russian they do need some humidity. The rabbit pellets is not helping with humidity hope this helps

 

[T33's Torts]

Rabbit pellets are not good. Quite bad, actually. They need to go! You're doing good otherwise!

 

[Hurricane]

Ah okay, I'll replace the pellets tomorrow! Thank you so much for warning me o.o
Also, I was wondering about her hibernation, or lack of, that is. I'm not going to set up for her to hibernate because even if all went well I would probably die of a panic attack worrying about her, especially since our dog would just love to chew her up (learned that the hard way- luckily he just sniffed her and pushed her over, but any further and she probably would've gotten hurt Poor baby) so if he somehow found her he would surely give her a good tossing. But since she's staying inside, she just naps for awhile and will wake up to eat or maybe move from her hide to her corner or vice versa, so I was wondering how often I should feed and soak her? We've been feeding her every day, but a lot of the time it just sits there and doesn't get touched, so I wanted to feed her a little less so we wouldn't waste so much food, but at the same time I don't want her to wake up hungry and not find anything! And with soaking, I want to start soaking her once a week again- I haven't been soaking her as much recently because a lot of the time she's sleeping and I feel guilty waking her up. Should I wake her up to soak her or just leave her be?

What's wrong with pet smart? Same as you I got mine from there and she is also a Russian

Although a lot of tortoises from places like Petsmart and Petco can be healthy like ours, there are also a lot of tortoises that are kept in poor conditions and can be very unhealthy and die quickly. If you're not too tight on money then I think it would be a good idea to buy from one of those stores to try and get some of the tortoises out of there before it's too late, but if you can only afford one tortoise and one tortoise only then I'd say don't take the risk and get one from a better supplier. Most of the tortoises are healthy I think, but you can never be too careful.