Is this a good enclosure for Russian tortoise

[DKw/RussainTortoise]

During the day she stays out in the large space but then at night I keep her in the tank, Wich has a digable material. I’ve never had a tortoise before and I want to make sure I’m not doing anything wrong or harming her health. So if I am doing something wrong please tell me 🙏

 

[wellington]

The large space needs proper substrate. Her food should not be on paper towel that she could accidentally eat.
She should have a tube florescent for uvb, incandescent flood bulb for basking that reaches 95-100, all over day temps of 75-80 and if temps in the room or night box are lower then 70 then a ceramic heat emitter for night heat.
You would stress her less leaving her to sleep in a hide that is in her day enclosure.
An adult Russian needs a minimum of a 4x8 foot enclosure

 

[Tom]

During the day she stays out in the large space but then at night I keep her in the tank, Wich has a digable material. I’ve never had a tortoise before and I want to make sure I’m not doing anything wrong or harming her health. So if I am doing something wrong please tell me 🙏View attachment 364877View attachment 364878

Hello and welcome. Our goal is to help you with your goal of not doing anything wrong or harmful to her. We have to point out what is wrong so that you know what to fix.

1. The floor is not a good place for a tortoise to live. Its cold down there even when the room is warm up at human eye level.
2. Tortoises need proper substrate.
3. That water bowl is not suitable because it is too slick and the rim is too high. You need a terra cotta saucer like the one in the lower left corner of the picture for food and water and it needs to be sunk into the substrate.
4. The foods on the paper towel are the wrong foods. You also have to be careful how you cut up hard foods like carrots or squash. They can choke on irregular pieces like that and die. Happens all the time.
5. Paper towels should not be used because the tortoise might eat it.
6. The pellets in the terra cotta food bowl feed to be soaked. Those are supposed to be food, right? I'm assuming those are grass hay pellets of some sort. That needs to be soaked and mixed in with the food.
7. You got the wrong type of lighting in that double hood and a double hood is not the way to go.
8. Plush stuff animals have no place in a tortoise enclosure.

Read this and look for the temperate species care sheet and the heating/lighting breakdown near the bottom:

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

 

[TammyJ]

Hi and welcome! You are getting some good and sound advice from Wellington and Tom. Enjoy setting up your tortoise right... without the stuffed toys that he might climb on and tip over on his back.

 

[Ada89]

Hello

Tom and Wellington offer good advice. The stuffed toys need to be taken out as she could try and eat them and get a blockage, or climb on them and fall on her back. Remove that paper towel (again, she could eat it) and give her a proper, terra cotta bowl (there's cheap ones on Amazon) for food and a separate one for water. She needs some kind of substrate instead of just walking on the floor (I use coconut coir) as at the moment she has nowhere to dig or hide so she's probably feeling very exposed. Russians really like to dig and she has nothing to dig at the moment.

In terms of diet, weeds/flowers/plants, etc, are considered the best (but check they're not toxic to tortoises), but if you can only get store produce, lambs lettuce, romaine lettuce, spring/collard greens, kale. Variety is important. I've found this website good to check which plants, etc, are safe to feed: https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/plant-database/fruit-vegetables/

Ada