So this post will sadden me in many ways but I need opinion from experience owners. At this moment it looks like I will be separating from my wife and we will be selling the house. By doing so I will have to get an appointment. This also means that I will not be able to store my enclosure that my red foot's in right now. She is in a 16 x4 x4 foot enclosure. This is far too large for me to store in an apartment. So what I need to know is what would be the absolute minimum size I could run for her before I have to consider surrendering her or finding someone to adopt her. As this is the very last thing I want to do, but I also know it is important to provide her with the best life or I should find someone who can. She is about 15 years old and these are her measurements. 7"wide 12"long.
Need opinions
- Thread starter Covey88
- Start date
So sorry about your situation.
Can you get a 2 bedroom and turn the spare room in to an enclosure dedicated to her?
Pond liner on the floor for substrate and hooks from the ceiling to hang lights and heat or a portable heater for heat. Then add a pop up portable green house like pictured for a high humidity area.
Can you get a 2 bedroom and turn the spare room in to an enclosure dedicated to her?
Pond liner on the floor for substrate and hooks from the ceiling to hang lights and heat or a portable heater for heat. Then add a pop up portable green house like pictured for a high humidity area.
mojo_1
Well-Known Member
Yep, get a 2 bedroom that tort needs room to roam.
Take a look at water troughs at a farm supply or feed store. Something like about 2'x 6' is small but doable for temporary. If you can fit a bigger one all the better.
That's small for an adult RF that's lived in much bigger and is 7w x12L and nothing said about temporary.
Keep this in mind. The minimum recommended for an adult Russian is 4x8 and they don't get no where near the size of a RF. Not sure what others are thinking!
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mojo_1
Well-Known Member
The reality of the situation is an adult redfoot needs a minimum of 10'x10'. If you feel smaller then that will be ideal, then I suggest you move all your 💩 into the bathroom and live in there for a bit to get a feel for what it's like for a tortoise, that in the wild roams several mile a day.
Ranging patterns by the red-footed tortoise - Geochelone carbonaria (Testudines: Testudinidae) - in the Bolivian Chaco
"On 592 occasions, tortoises were located on successive days. On 401 of these occasions the tortoises had not moved at all but remained in the same burrow or shelter. The longest single-day displacement for a tortoise, 1,360 m, was registered for female 6C. Male 4C also registered a single-day displacement of over 1,000 m. The longest single-day displacement for a tortoise at Ravelo was 630 m for male 6R. Including all the days without movement, average daily displacement was higher in the wet season (71 m, SD 160) than in the dry season (19 m, SD 94) (Student’s one-tailed t-test, p<0.01), and this pattern was followed by both males and females. However, when tortoises did move, single-day displacement was higher in the dry season (mean 192 m, SD 238) than in the wet season (mean 167 m, SD 207), though the differences are not statistically significant, and for females 2C and 3C the opposite was true. Males (N=7 individuals, mean 210 m, SD 219) tended to move further than females (N=4 individuals, mean 183 m, SD 250) in the dry season, but females (mean 178 m, SD 242) moved further than males (mean 150 m, SD 139) in the wet season, though neither of these differences is significant."
This is special circumstances. Is a smallish water trough ideal? No, but once the OP gets his life back in some semblance of order he can start re-setting things back to the way he'd like them to be. Put in similar circumstances any of us would do what we could to keep our tortoises.
But the OP nor us, know if this is a temp situation. In a divorce, it can really set people back financially for quite a while and can be a long drawn out years affair. Recommending something that isn't even recommended for a much smaller Russian isn't fair for the tortoise.
Can they go smaller then a room, of course. If he can afford a two bedroom, why not.
Putting it in to small of an enclosure just to have it live under stress and possibly cause illness, isn't going to help the OP or the tortoise.
I already have to get a second room apartment for my child to have a room. I am looking at houses also. So this could be temporary ( but most leases around me are 1 year) I am also considering something I can put in the living room area. Just trying to figure out what is my best option for her to have a healthy life. (I don't want to give her up, but understand life happens and having her live in less than minimal standards is cruel.)
So Mark do you take this to show that maybe they don't move as much daily as we think?
Can someone here on TFO in Ohio help by fostering this tort? My idea is, this is a temporary situation to help a keeper who has had a major life change. I also have had a change, and a TFO member helped me out by providing a home for my big tortoise (she's in a great place). My idea here is not to make this keeper feel any worse, but SIMPLY offer ideas or help...TFO???
But she CAN be kept in a smaller than ideal situation temporarily while a better situation is looked for...we need to help w/out condemnation
mojo_1
Well-Known Member
If I was home more I would do it. But unfortunately a lot of pet care falls on my wife. And she said another tortoise would be to much on her plate.
i guess it depends how much someone thinks they move...i personally don't think they move as much as a lot of people think..... i believe they do not move unnecessarily, they only move for a purpose, survival of the species, which would include survival of self........ i would think moving around unnecessarily is not a good survival strategy for a turtle or tortoise.....
i read one of these movement studies for eastern box turtles. the ones that lived in areas where all their needs were condensed into a smaller area, they moved less than turtles whose needs were more spread out.....
I only have experience with Hermans and Eastern Box Turtles but I have noticed over the years that when one of them are acting restless or pacing it is usually because one or more of their needs aren't being met. Usually it was food. I do notice with males in the springtime they will pace the outdoor enclosures walls no matter how large the enclosures are. I have also noticed when everything is provided and parameters are good they will lay around and hardly move. I'm not sure how small an enclosure and how much time it would take to do serious damage but I bet its way different than most people believe.
Littleredfootbigredheart
Well-Known Member
First off I’m sorry for your situation!
Figured I could share our own personal situation for some insight on why some might opt for a less than ideal size vs rehome.
But make no mistake, I think enclosure size is very important, had it been on me, we wouldn’t have ended up in the situation we did🙃
We ourselves have our red foot in too small a set up currently😣it was a tricky situation in that she was an impulse buy of my moms partner years before we knew one another, he went off what he was told by ‘experts’ that she’d probably only need a 6x2 fully grown.. insane I know!🙄so he didn’t realise his space was an issue at the time.
By the time we met, the viv she was in was tiny and she’d be in there over a decade, it was quickly deteriorating and couldn’t hold humidity properly anymore, we knew realistically in an ideal situation she could do with going to a new home willing to house her in both a large enough area and meet all her husbandry needs.
The difficult thing was, we couldn’t find a suitable home where we are, in the uk, for the most part, people are housing them in far too small a set up for lack of indoor space(our climate really doesn’t allow us to house them outdoors unless willing to build a space that can hold a tropical climate in our freezing temps, not impossible, but not easy) and most the care info you find here is pretty outdated and redundant.
The viv began to rot at the bottom and we realised we had no other choice than to go the biggest we can possibly provide.
I guess the difference with our situation is, our red foot was going from a tiny space(4x2)she’d been in her whole life, to a much larger set up(7x4) so she’s just been grateful to see her little world expand.
I can’t say your tortoise will like being moved from a large set up to a smaller one, but I guess ultimately I can reason with the idea that it’s better for a tortoise to be in a less than ideal size with all other needs being met, with someone on this forum, than with a less than adequate new home with potentially outdated husbandry😕I can also sympathise with wanting to keep your tortoise😞
It pains me ours isn’t yet in a big enough set up, I always feel such a hypocrite having to advise on why it’s so important to have a good sized enclosure😣I hope one day I myself have a larger space to house her, or we can find a good new home down the line, because they really do thrive with a large area to explore, there’s no disputing that.
Honestly I don’t think there is any easy solution here right now, but I hope you find what works best for you and your tortoise!
Figured I could share our own personal situation for some insight on why some might opt for a less than ideal size vs rehome.
But make no mistake, I think enclosure size is very important, had it been on me, we wouldn’t have ended up in the situation we did🙃
We ourselves have our red foot in too small a set up currently😣it was a tricky situation in that she was an impulse buy of my moms partner years before we knew one another, he went off what he was told by ‘experts’ that she’d probably only need a 6x2 fully grown.. insane I know!🙄so he didn’t realise his space was an issue at the time.
By the time we met, the viv she was in was tiny and she’d be in there over a decade, it was quickly deteriorating and couldn’t hold humidity properly anymore, we knew realistically in an ideal situation she could do with going to a new home willing to house her in both a large enough area and meet all her husbandry needs.
The difficult thing was, we couldn’t find a suitable home where we are, in the uk, for the most part, people are housing them in far too small a set up for lack of indoor space(our climate really doesn’t allow us to house them outdoors unless willing to build a space that can hold a tropical climate in our freezing temps, not impossible, but not easy) and most the care info you find here is pretty outdated and redundant.
The viv began to rot at the bottom and we realised we had no other choice than to go the biggest we can possibly provide.
I guess the difference with our situation is, our red foot was going from a tiny space(4x2)she’d been in her whole life, to a much larger set up(7x4) so she’s just been grateful to see her little world expand.
I can’t say your tortoise will like being moved from a large set up to a smaller one, but I guess ultimately I can reason with the idea that it’s better for a tortoise to be in a less than ideal size with all other needs being met, with someone on this forum, than with a less than adequate new home with potentially outdated husbandry😕I can also sympathise with wanting to keep your tortoise😞
It pains me ours isn’t yet in a big enough set up, I always feel such a hypocrite having to advise on why it’s so important to have a good sized enclosure😣I hope one day I myself have a larger space to house her, or we can find a good new home down the line, because they really do thrive with a large area to explore, there’s no disputing that.
Honestly I don’t think there is any easy solution here right now, but I hope you find what works best for you and your tortoise!
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