My redfoot family

[crabby-J]

Great! Thanks!! I live in Michigan so here we have wacky weather!

 

[pfara]

Great! Thanks!! I live in Michigan so here we have wacky weather!

Maryland has crazy weather, too. I grew up in San Francisco and I haven't yet adapted to east coast weather.

 

[pfara]

Punch turned 2 today.






Stats (first recording .. 1 year .. 2 year) -

Sunset: 2.0 oz, 2-5/8" .. 7.55 oz, 4" .. 32.40 oz, 6-1/2"
Loki: 1.5 oz, 2-1/2" .. 12.05 oz, 4-7/8" .. 43.15 oz, 7-11/16"
Jingle: 1.45 oz, 2-3/8" .. 7.65 oz, 4-1/16" .. 21.25 oz, 6"
Punch: 1.75 oz, 2-1/2" .. 11.35 oz, 4-3/4" .. 36.06 oz, 6-13/16"

Appearance/personality -

Sunset: Sunny's facial colors have turned from a mango color to slightly more reddish along the sides of her head. She's still pretty much a loner but comes out whenever she wants to. Also, she's one of those un-dainty animals that love stinky stuff (she goes nuts when I use organic fertilizers aka poop).
Loki: The marbling on her carapace has come in very minimal. High chance she's female (unless proven otherwise). Loki is pretty shy but always comes out when the enclosure is sprayed down. She LOVES the water.
Jingle: Not much change in appearance. She's grown slow and steady. She is the most outgoing, friendly tortoise of the bunch. She's also very reckless and the most energetic. Two days ago I heard a loud enough noise in the enclosure to make me check. Jingle must have tried climbing Mt. Corkflat and ended up flipping over (first incident since I received them). She soaked in water then went about roaming the enclosure like nothing happened. She seems to comes up to me and follow whenever I show up.
Punch: Despite being in the same environment as the others, Punch is showing some pyramiding. Punch and Jingle are the most social with the other tortoises. While Jingle is more social with everyone, including me, Punch is just social with other tortoises. She loves basking and shaking her butt on plants. I've noticed the butt shaking is less prominent now that the bromeliads were changed to hanging plants.



I've also added a shelf into the tortoise enclosure and added some extra lights to grow various fig and mulberry cuttings for them.




That's it for a while unless something crazy happens. That or outdoor pics.. warm weather isn't coming soon enough!

 

[franz_see]

Stats (first recording .. 1 year .. 2 year) -

Sunset: 2.0 oz, 2-5/8" .. 7.55 oz, 4" .. 32.40 oz, 6-1/2"
Loki: 1.5 oz, 2-1/2" .. 12.05 oz, 4-7/8" .. 43.15 oz, 7-11/16"
Jingle: 1.45 oz, 2-3/8" .. 7.65 oz, 4-1/16" .. 21.25 oz, 6"
Punch: 1.75 oz, 2-1/2" .. 11.35 oz, 4-3/4" .. 36.06 oz, 6-13/16"

Wow. nice Do you know the dates of those recordings? Would love to add them in my collection http://bit.ly/tortoise-growth-charts I only have 2 redfoots right now, and would love to add more to it

 

[pfara]

Wow. nice Do you know the dates of those recordings? Would love to add them in my collection http://bit.ly/tortoise-growth-charts I only have 2 redfoots right now, and would love to add more to it

I keep a journal with all their monthly stats, dates included. Let me know if you just need the dates of those numbers that I just listed or all of them.

 

[KTyne]

Ahhh, love the photos as per usual! They all look so healthy and spoiled, and are such gorgeous torts! Love seeing all of your updates

 

[franz_see]

I keep a journal with all their monthly stats, dates included. Let me know if you just need the dates of those numbers that I just listed or all of them.

Wow. If you can give me the monthly stats @pfara that would be great! The more the merrier ! Thanks!

 

[pfara]

** One error on Punch's 2nd birthday. Stats should have been taken on the 7th instead of the 8th.

 

[franz_see]

** One error on Punch's 2nd birthday. Stats should have been taken on the 7th instead of the 8th.

Great! Thanks I'll collate them and give you an update

 

[franz_see]

I've now entered them into the collection under the redfoot section : http://bit.ly/tortoise-growth-charts . All in all, there are now 6 redfoots in there!

Although not statistically significant, at least we can get a peek as to how fast redfoots actually grow - and so far, seems like they grow at about 14% per month Roughly, that translates to a 2x growth in 5mos time very very interesting indeed

 

[pfara]

Latest updates: I took the cover off of the indoor enclosure a few weeks ago. Now that I have a feel for what grows well and what doesn't, I can have fun experimenting. Right now I'm trying to get an indoor lawn and moss taking over. We'll see how that goes. I figure, if it doesn't work, I can turn it [grass and moss] over into the substrate for extra nutrients. I have cuttings of existing plants that I can transplant back in there if need be. It's definitely a slow work in progress.







And this wonky weather makes it feel like it's almost summer. I was able to take whatever tort was within hand's reach outside for some fun in the sun. Unfortunately, Loki seemed more interested in attempting to eat rocks than anything else.

 

[CharlieM]

Wonderful photos as always! Your cherries just keep getting more beautiful.

 

[KTyne]

The moss/grass growth is looking good to me! That'll be awesome if it works out
I love your tortoises <3

 

[pfara]

The moss/grass growth is looking good to me! That'll be awesome if it works out
I love your tortoises <3

Thanks! It's way too soon to see how disastrous this new project will be. Moss is supposedly a slow-ish grower after it attaches itself to a surface. And I'm probably going to keep applying grass seed to ensure it thickens up properly. Unfortunately, I usually find the grass flopped over from the torts. My kids think I'm crazy trying to "cut and comb" the fallen grass upwards but seriously.. it's pretty zen

 

[pfara]

I took advantage of the nice weather while it lasted:












I hope everyone in the storming states fares well and I wish we could send some of this extra water over to Cali.

 

[pfara]

It's getting harder to make natural looking shelters/caves (indoors) for them to completely fit in. Loki gave up on trying to fit through one of the jumbo cork flats so I had to tie two of them together just so she could walk in. If anyone has more ideas for when she doubles in size, I'm all for it.

Oh, and the indoor grass idea wasn't so awesome. I mean, it works, but it's not aesthetically pleasing (to me) when almost every blade of grass is lying limp from being trampled all day lol..

 

[christinaland128]

When is someone going to invent BiGGeR LOGS?! LOL

 

[Anyfoot]

It's getting harder to make natural looking shelters/caves (indoors) for them to completely fit in. Loki gave up on trying to fit through one of the jumbo cork flats so I had to tie two of them together just so she could walk in. If anyone has more ideas for when she doubles in size, I'm all for it.

Oh, and the indoor grass idea wasn't so awesome. I mean, it works, but it's not aesthetically pleasing (to me) when almost every blade of grass is lying limp from being trampled all day lol..

I love everything you've done. Your torts look amazing. I've been thinking what to do about hides when they get bigger. Some ideas I had were. Mould a shape with wire mesh and line it all with moss and/mud. To make a mud cave. Or you could cement loads of small rocks/stones and pebbles into a cave shape the when dry splatter the whole thing with sloppy cement so it looks like one big bumpy rock. Then paint with a non toxic paint. This is what they do in zoos. I watched them make a polar bear cave at my local zoo the other week. They used stone,broken house bricks, cinder blocks all cemented together unevenly and random. Then they splattered it all with sloppy cement then painted it. They had a finished cave for there existing polar bear. Looked right good. I'm going to do this on a small scale when I get round to it.

 

[pfara]

I love everything you've done. Your torts look amazing. I've been thinking what to do about hides when they get bigger. Some ideas I had were. Mould a shape with wire mesh and line it all with moss and/mud. To make a mud cave. Or you could cement loads of small rocks/stones and pebbles into a cave shape the when dry splatter the whole thing with sloppy cement so it looks like one big bumpy rock. Then paint with a non toxic paint. This is what they do in zoos. I watched them make a polar bear cave at my local zoo the other week. They used stone,broken house bricks, cinder blocks all cemented together unevenly and random. Then they splattered it all with sloppy cement then painted it. They had a finished cave for there existing polar bear. Looked right good. I'm going to do this on a small scale when I get round to it.

Thanks so much! I did the "moist root shelter" (http://www.graeca-home.de/Krueger 2008 e.pdf) in the very beginning when I was new to gardening and owning torts. I think I stopped after 4 months because it seemed like I was making and replacing the shelters every two weeks. I had trouble finding that fine line of watering everything and seemed to kill everything I put in. I might be able to try it again now that I'm a little better at keeping things more or less alive. The only issue I could see with it now is that I'd need thicker hardware cloth to support all the weight of a larger mound. I can't do the cement/rock idea only because my enclosure probably weighs over a ton already and I'm paranoid that one day the bedroom floor will cave I would most likely do something like that for outdoors, though, but maybe line the inside of the rock cave with something a lot less rough (I like flawless shells )

Good luck with your future projects. I'm looking forward to pictures and ideas!

 

[Anyfoot]

Thanks so much! I did the "moist root shelter" (http://www.graeca-home.de/Krueger 2008 e.pdf) in the very beginning when I was new to gardening and owning torts. I think I stopped after 4 months because it seemed like I was making and replacing the shelters every two weeks. I had trouble finding that fine line of watering everything and seemed to kill everything I put in. I might be able to try it again now that I'm a little better at keeping things more or less alive. The only issue I could see with it now is that I'd need thicker hardware cloth to support all the weight of a larger mound. I can't do the cement/rock idea only because my enclosure probably weighs over a ton already and I'm paranoid that one day the bedroom floor will cave I would most likely do something like that for outdoors, though, but maybe line the inside of the rock cave with something a lot less rough (I like flawless shells )

Good luck with your future projects. I'm looking forward to pictures and ideas!

I'll keep you up to date with what I'm doing when I get my new enclosure built, should be done by end of July latest.
I agree with what you are saying about the flawless shells, I think they need to rub there shells against things too smooth them off like wild torts do, low lying nooks and crannies that they can only just get into, low lying branches they can squeeze under. Bushes to push though. Also if you provide low lying areas the males can't mount the females, so a place for the females to retreat to.