OK, I finally have a relatively decent "work in progress" outdoor enclosure set up for my Russian tortoise, Fezzik (4'5" long, guessing 4ish years), which has an enclosed/predator safe "night" area, and a larger day area (with door between). Right now he is only out during the day, and still in a 2x3 "tortoise box" inside my garage at night. The "safe" area isn't close to done yet... It gets a mix of sun and shade, the "left" half of it shady most of the day, and the "right" half sunny from around 10am on. For reference the humid hide is in the shadiest corner that gets almost no direct sun, just some dappled sun in the morning. The fact that there is still grass in these photos is only because it hasn't died out yet, as I've turned off sprinklers so as to not rot the wood. Eventually I will add in plantings, so as I said, this is a WIP, but I would love suggestions, commentaries.
The overall space is 10' x 12', tho its separated into 4' x 10' for the 'safe' area, and then another 8 x 10 for the rest (and 2' tall). I have set up a humid hide with a buried plastic bin with a hole cut in the side, covered in coconut coir... Currently it stays in the mid/high 60s and 90% humidity in there, but he seems to hate it. Has gone in a few times, looked around and come back out. So, anything I should try differently? I do have other "shade" places besides this, but this is intended to be the "super cool, super shady" spot, but no interest whatsoever.
He does like to dig, but now that he can't dig directly under the walls (thanks to cobblestones) he doesn't try to dig as much - sometimes under one of the cobblestones, but even when he does dig mostly he gets a few inches down and just is half in the sun, head underground.
What concerns me is he mostly wanders into a corner and faces the wall (see pic). He does this all over the place - finds a corner, and then faces into it. Is this fear behavior, or just him chilling?
He is decently active when outside, eats a very little bit every few days (so far will only eat Escarole despite me trying everything else under the sun), poops and pees on his own, as well as when getting soaked. Mostly, I think he is terrified of me because he went from a life of 100% "on his own" in a yard to having this crazy lady who soaks and and moves him around from this ridiculously small box at night to this unfamiliar yard space, and then back again.
Some background, he was bought at a pet store 3 years ago by an elderly couple and kept in their yard, along with a female Russian and a Redfoot. The woman of the couple, who probably gave them the closest thing to decent care, if ever, died during Covid and the husband went into deep depression and stopped taking care of them other than tossing mixed salad greens into the yard for them (and apparently some dog food for the redfoot). The female Russian was either stolen or "thrown out" by a neighbor, when I, agreed to take the remaining two (male Russian, female Redfoot) just for the sake of getting them out into a safe space - nothing knowing about them. After learning their species and reading up (here!) I realized I couldn't keep both and found a great, experienced home for the Redfoot, leaving me with the Russian. His transfer to me about a month ago was pretty traumatic for him (lots of stress, overheating, massive amounts of pooping), but then he got to chill out and he has been kept in the above-mentioned too-small tortoise box until I could get a larger space built, and has now been spending days there for about a week or so.
So in sum:
1) Any enclosure suggestions (again plantings are to come!),
b) any suggestions on why he might hate the hide and anything to do about it? and
c) is sitting facing a corner normal behavior?
The overall space is 10' x 12', tho its separated into 4' x 10' for the 'safe' area, and then another 8 x 10 for the rest (and 2' tall). I have set up a humid hide with a buried plastic bin with a hole cut in the side, covered in coconut coir... Currently it stays in the mid/high 60s and 90% humidity in there, but he seems to hate it. Has gone in a few times, looked around and come back out. So, anything I should try differently? I do have other "shade" places besides this, but this is intended to be the "super cool, super shady" spot, but no interest whatsoever.
He does like to dig, but now that he can't dig directly under the walls (thanks to cobblestones) he doesn't try to dig as much - sometimes under one of the cobblestones, but even when he does dig mostly he gets a few inches down and just is half in the sun, head underground.
What concerns me is he mostly wanders into a corner and faces the wall (see pic). He does this all over the place - finds a corner, and then faces into it. Is this fear behavior, or just him chilling?
He is decently active when outside, eats a very little bit every few days (so far will only eat Escarole despite me trying everything else under the sun), poops and pees on his own, as well as when getting soaked. Mostly, I think he is terrified of me because he went from a life of 100% "on his own" in a yard to having this crazy lady who soaks and and moves him around from this ridiculously small box at night to this unfamiliar yard space, and then back again.
Some background, he was bought at a pet store 3 years ago by an elderly couple and kept in their yard, along with a female Russian and a Redfoot. The woman of the couple, who probably gave them the closest thing to decent care, if ever, died during Covid and the husband went into deep depression and stopped taking care of them other than tossing mixed salad greens into the yard for them (and apparently some dog food for the redfoot). The female Russian was either stolen or "thrown out" by a neighbor, when I, agreed to take the remaining two (male Russian, female Redfoot) just for the sake of getting them out into a safe space - nothing knowing about them. After learning their species and reading up (here!) I realized I couldn't keep both and found a great, experienced home for the Redfoot, leaving me with the Russian. His transfer to me about a month ago was pretty traumatic for him (lots of stress, overheating, massive amounts of pooping), but then he got to chill out and he has been kept in the above-mentioned too-small tortoise box until I could get a larger space built, and has now been spending days there for about a week or so.
So in sum:
1) Any enclosure suggestions (again plantings are to come!),
b) any suggestions on why he might hate the hide and anything to do about it? and
c) is sitting facing a corner normal behavior?
