Russian tortoise heathy?

[tombomb1997]

I don't live by any reptile vets and I was just wondering if my torts shell is healthy. His is active and has quite an appetite he eats organic spring mix and has a UVA and UVB bulb and I soak him once a week. He is around one year old.

 

[Tom]

He looks good.

How do you know the age? Looks older than one year.

He needs much more variety in the diet and he would benefit from a better substrate too.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

I see new growth on the shell. Is that what you are concerned over? He also looks more like a wild caught adult than a captive bred yearling to me.

Give him some nice dirt to bury himself in and ditch the pellets. He will thank you for it

Sent from my TFOapp

 

[tombomb1997]

Yes the growth is what I was concerned over. It's about time to clean out his cage and replace the substrate. He has the pellets because I tried a mix of coir and play sand, but barely ate when I had it in his cage. And seemed miserable because he was covered in coir and sand all the time. Once I switched to pellets it took a couple of weeks but he got his appetite back and is back to himself.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

How about plain top soil? It's all I use and love it.
It isn't sticky like I've heard about the coir. No impaction risk like I hear about sand. No mixing cuz it's all in the 1 bag.


Sent from my TFOapp

 

[Yvonne G]

Your tortoise is about 10 to 15 years of age. Pet stores always tell their customers the wrong age for Russians. It seems they think that because the tortoise is small, its young.

Your tortoise is experiencing uneven growth because he's in the house, eating grocery store greens and living on a very dry pelleted substrate. He really needs to be outside where he can dig down into the moist dirt and benefit from real sunshine. And once he starts grazing and eating food growing in the yard, the growth will start to even out.

 

[tombomb1997]

O wow 10 to 15! Hopefully tomorrow I will have the time to change his substrate around. I think I will try straight coir. I'm going to let it dry a bit before putting it in his cage because it was quite a mess when it was wet.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Or like Tom puts it, he could be 4 years old or 40 years old

Sent from my TFOapp

 

[Tom]

Try hand packing the coir. That helps reduce the messiness.

 

[tombomb1997]

Ok I will

 

[Lauraryan]

Could someone explain exactly what's meant by "increase in the growth plates" in the photos of this original post? Does it mean the widening distance of the lighter color area surrounding the scutes?

 

[WillTort2]

When I make changes to my Russian's enclosures, I find that if I change part of the enclosure and then let them adapt before finishing the change seems to be less disruptive to their eating and sleeping schedules.

For substrate, change half of it and then observe over the next few days where the tort prefers to rest. I like the mix of top soil and coco coir.

 

[tombomb1997]

as you can see he like the coir