Merah
New Member
Heya tortoise owners 
Long story short I was asked to take care of my fathers tortoises over his holidays which lead to me thinking "Is this the proper way of keeping them?" I'll just try to provide as much information as I can, but if you need any more information I'll try to answer them to the best of my knowledge / ask him
Right off the bat, we live in Switzerland, according to some random website that I've found it tends to be sunnier here but slightly less warm overall. We currently have 4 tortoises whose age I can't really tell, one is very young (about 10 cm in length) and the other 3 are older, maybe around 14 years old?
Enclosure
My biggest gripe: Their enclosure. Yes' it's huge, but it doesn't really offer them much and it's outside, temperatures vary and they're there 24/7
Right side of the enclosure with a little, thin house that probably doesn't really isolate but makes it warm when the sun shines on it
Left side of the enclosure (see the log on both pictures for a reference point) with their water bowl, sorry it was raining hence it's dirty with rocks in it, already cleaned after taking the picture
They do not have access to a heatlamp or any of that, what you see is what they get, I don't know what his hibernation idea is this time around, I think he'll take them into our cellar in a cage filled with leaves or let them burrow into the ground in the enclosure house, I shall ask him when he gets back home.
Nutrition
They only get weeds, mainly dandelion with some clover in it at times. we don't add any supplements or fruits / vegetables. Sometimes they only get salad which I've heard doesn't really offer a lot of nutrition for them. I've added some cuttlefish from the petstore which we've gotten recently to provide them with calcium.
Pyramiding?
Took a sideways picture of our biggest tortoise just to ask here if something's developing here or not, as I'm not really a connaiseur of tortoises
I've already told my dad about the heatlamp issue and his counterargument was that "They don't have that in the wild either and that's how their breeder kept them aswell", both points are obviously not really.. reasonable to me, but I couldn't give him examples of what would happen to the tortoises if they're being kept like that without a change.
What I'm hoping to get from you folks:
Again, I'll try to get information off of my old man if you need to know anything else
Have a lovely day!
Long story short I was asked to take care of my fathers tortoises over his holidays which lead to me thinking "Is this the proper way of keeping them?" I'll just try to provide as much information as I can, but if you need any more information I'll try to answer them to the best of my knowledge / ask him
Right off the bat, we live in Switzerland, according to some random website that I've found it tends to be sunnier here but slightly less warm overall. We currently have 4 tortoises whose age I can't really tell, one is very young (about 10 cm in length) and the other 3 are older, maybe around 14 years old?
Enclosure
My biggest gripe: Their enclosure. Yes' it's huge, but it doesn't really offer them much and it's outside, temperatures vary and they're there 24/7
Right side of the enclosure with a little, thin house that probably doesn't really isolate but makes it warm when the sun shines on it
Left side of the enclosure (see the log on both pictures for a reference point) with their water bowl, sorry it was raining hence it's dirty with rocks in it, already cleaned after taking the picture
They do not have access to a heatlamp or any of that, what you see is what they get, I don't know what his hibernation idea is this time around, I think he'll take them into our cellar in a cage filled with leaves or let them burrow into the ground in the enclosure house, I shall ask him when he gets back home.
Nutrition
They only get weeds, mainly dandelion with some clover in it at times. we don't add any supplements or fruits / vegetables. Sometimes they only get salad which I've heard doesn't really offer a lot of nutrition for them. I've added some cuttlefish from the petstore which we've gotten recently to provide them with calcium.
Pyramiding?
Took a sideways picture of our biggest tortoise just to ask here if something's developing here or not, as I'm not really a connaiseur of tortoises
I've already told my dad about the heatlamp issue and his counterargument was that "They don't have that in the wild either and that's how their breeder kept them aswell", both points are obviously not really.. reasonable to me, but I couldn't give him examples of what would happen to the tortoises if they're being kept like that without a change.
What I'm hoping to get from you folks:
- Advice on nutrition / links to good sources nutritionwise
- Advice on the enclosure situation as I don't just want all that space to go to waste either.. Would you recommend taking them inside when it's too cold? If so how cold? and build one of those fancy tortoise tables?
- Would you keep the smallest one from hibernating? I've had someone tell me you shouldn't hibernate young tortoises.
- What could be negative effects to their development if it stays that way?
Again, I'll try to get information off of my old man if you need to know anything else
Have a lovely day!
