New to the Forum and New Russian :o)

[nancydrew88]

Hi all,

We purchased a Russian Tortoise from a local petstore here about a month ago. Unfortunately I purchased her BEFORE I read up on tortoises and found this website, so we started
her(I think) off with all the wrong stuff. The petstore recommended a 10 gallon ViV, which after I got home I realized was WAY wrong just from looks and I went back and purchased a 40 gal Viv. (Now I find out that ALL Viv's are bad, so we will have to fix that in the future. The petstore also recommended Repti Bark and said to feed her iceberg lettuce and blueberries and tomatoes. They didn't tell me anything about soaking her and the water dish they recommended was WAY to small. Finally, the petstore told me that She was a He so the kids named it Mr T. Then I took her to the vet to have her checked out and make sure she was healthy. There the Vet told me that He was actually a She so now her name is MissT ;o) The Vet recommended coconut coir , rabbit pellets, or grass for a substrate. She said to feed MissT mostly leafy greens, so we have been feeding her all sorts of those. Anyway.... after all that I found this website and have found all sorts of helpful info. MissT is now in her 40 gal Viv, with a mix of coconut coir and sand substrate, which I moisten everday and mix up. She gets a nice soak every other day for about 15 minutes and her viv has a nice big bowl for soaking and things to break up the sightline. I feed her leafy greens for 20 minutes daily. The lighting consists of 1 UVB bulb and one UVA bulb both in dome lamp shades. The heat has a nice variant from about 90-95 at one end and 65-75 at the other end. I plan to build her some sort of tort table inside and a tort pen outside. Both will take awhile. I have little ones at home that would be too rough with her, so I am nervous about an open top tort table, not to mention I don't really have a great space for it yet. I have to come up with something. As for outside we live near an arboretum that has lots of predators and we live nextdoor to two large dogs, so I need to come up with a good area for her that won't stress her out. I do take her outside frequently and let her roam the yard while I keep an eye on her. I also let her roam a bit in the house while the kids are napping and I can watch her, so she doesn't get trampled. She seems to like her new home a lot better than the petstore, but I do have one question. After reading some threads on here I think her shell has a little bit of dryrot possibly. Can someone tell me if this is correct if I post pics? Also I have attached some pics of her plastron in hopes that someone can confirm her sex. I am pretty sure that the vet was correct with her thought that MissT is indeed a girl, but more eyes never hurt. Thanks in advance for any input!

~Randee
Mom to:
1 Energetic 7 Year old boy, 1 Bouncy 3 year old boy, 1 beautiful 18 month old girl, and 1 adorable Russian Tortoise )

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Randee:

to the forum!!

 

[dmmj]

Welcome, I wish sometimes we could fine petstores that give out such info that is obviously wrong.

 

[nancydrew88]

yeah I know I was so upset with the info from the petstore, that I went back in and asked them if they new they were giving out bad information. They said they were required to give out that info because they are governed by their corporate office. Way to go Petsmart! (

 

[Bthumpsta]

What is this about soaking? is that necessary? If so how would one go about soaking a tortoise? And the tort looks adorable!!!! I bought my russian from a Petco and they actually were pretty knowledgeable on torts, the salesman said he raised Sulcatas... yet there was no heat lamp in the glass enclosure they had him in...

 

[nancydrew88]

I have been putting about a half an inch of warm water in a shallow dish and then placing my tortoise in it for about 15 minutes every other day. Then she soaks up (and drinks some water if she's thirsty) This is supposed to keep them hydrated from what I have read. They also will let out their urates and poop a lot of times while in the water. They they don't do it so much in their enclosure.

 

[ChiKat]

Hi Randee! It sounds like you're made a lot of positive changes for your little one! I can't believe the pet store said to feed her blueberries and tomatoes (I guess I shouldn't be surprised )
I wouldn't recommend rabbit pellets for a substrate so I'm glad you chose coir/sand! If you find the sand to be too irritating you might want to consider switching to coir mixed with organic topsoil. I had my Russian hatchling on coir/sand for several months and it was fine, but I switched to coir/soil the last time I changed his substrate.

http://www.russiantortoise.org/care_sheet.htm is a great caresheet, and they have a section on diet too
http://www.russiantortoise.org/russiantortoisediet.htm

Congrats on your new addition! I've only been a Russian tort owner since August but I'm obsessed

 

[nancydrew88]

Thanks for the great resources Katie! yeah I looked up and saw that rabbit pellets weren't very good and it didn't seem to be a very good substrate for the tortoise to burrow down into, so I chose the coir/ sand.... I have been thinking about switching since I read some other threads on here about the sand irritating their eyes, but so far MissT really seems happy with it. I mixed it about 40/60 so not as much sand as coir. Maybe that makes a difference. Probably will try soil the next time I change everything out so I can be sure she is happy. I am really enjoying learning all about tortoises. I even went to a local show here... although I was really dissappointed with the show. I felt really bad for the animals there. Fortunately there weren't many tortoises, but the ones that were there were crammed into little boxes with several other tortoises, and they didn't even split up the little ones from the big ones. It seemed really awful for them. ( If I could have I would have bought them all just to give them better conditions!

 

[ChiKat]

Yeah a lot of people on here aren't fans of the sand, but to be honest it worked fine for Nelson. His eyes were irritated once (a little red) so I soaked him and he rubbed them and was fine. I blamed it on the sand but ya never know
I do like the soil/coir mix better and Nelson enjoys burrowing in it.

At shows they usually cram torts together but it's just temporary while they're at the show. I would hope they're not actually housed like that!

I think you'll really like this forum! I have learned soo much here I enjoy learning about tortoises too. Before I got Nelson I was constantly looking for Russian caresheets and researching as much as possible!