Russian Housing

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captainjack

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I don't have any pics of my new set up as yet but i will post some as soon as i can. When i first rescued my tortoise he was in a vivarium that was less than 1 foot long and half a foot wide, it was heated by a large underground heat mat and then additional heating was given by two large heat lamps...thus it was way too hot for a Russian Horsfields and i am a great believer that vivariums are not suitable for that species. I orignally moved him into a large 5ft by 3ft fish tank which he was not in for long as he developed alot of stress and his first OCD type issue arose in that he would force himself onto his two back feet and attack the heat lamp. So plan B was to move him into a different kind of enclosure, so i set about divisng one and came up with a 4ft by 4ft un shelved wooden bookcase. It had a great depth and great places to place his heat lighting and UV lighting, he had plenty of rocks and plants too however no matter how long i persisted he would not venture into any kind of hide and believe me in 2 years i have tried everything going. This housing sufficed him for 7 months and he was very happy in there until he began attacking the heat lamp again, however this time the situation was made worse by his sudden ability to climb up the wooden sides of his housing on his two legs and then make himself flip upside down onto the back of his shell, no matter what we did we couldn't stop him from doing it. So the specialist told us that he can't be in any enclosure that has wooden, plastic or glass surrounds as he will constantly attempt to flip himself. His specialist advised i try him in an indoor rabbit enclosure which is his current new home. it's about 5ft by 2ft, has enough depth and the heat lamp and UV lamps are now out of his attacking distance however he has now figured out how to climb the bars of the enclosure and this is worrying me even more, i'm running out of enclosures to keep him in as he always manages to find something that could cause problems...so he can't go in an enclosure that has wooden, plastic or glass sides and yes he even managed to flip himself in a shed too and he even attempts in it his wire mesh garden enclosure and now it looks like bars are on their way out too, thing is though that aside from the bar climbing he is exceptionally settled within this new enclosure.
 

Yvonne G

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I think you'll find that he is totally happy once the weather permits him to be outside in his outdoor pen.

Yvonne
 

tortoisenerd

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Awww poor little guy. I don't have enough experience to give advice but I hope you find something that works for both of you. He sounds very determined!
 

captainjack

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Oh determined is his middle name ha ha. He's a terror in the garden when he's out there, he has full run of it at 100ft but even then he has to be watched like a hawk, not because he can escape..well he can...funny story that one and i still haven't figured out how he did it...basically i had him in an outdoor pen and since i knew Horsfields liked to dig i buried the pen sides 3ft under in what i called ground security holes so there was no way for him dig down and out it also had no doors or openings and had to be lifted manually out of it's ground security holes. Well one day i come home to find no tortoise in the pen...there was no holes around it to say he had somehow managed to dig out and the pen was not moved out of its security holes and yet he was still missing. After searching for 2 hours we found him wandering by a neighbours shed and to this day i still haven't figured out how he got outta of it.
 

Meg90

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If you didn't see any evidence that he dug his way out, he probably climbed. That's what most people don't know about torts...they like to go up and over too...I've got a Greek and that is his favorite thing to do...to try and climb his logs, his plants, anything.

What was the fence made of?
 
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