Tips on Russian Tortoise Enclosure Please

[zeebee]

I am currently planning on building my own enclosure once I free up some more space but any tips to make Kirby’s current enclosure better would be awesome! He’s a Russian tortoise and around 6-7 months.
This is a top view, the left side is a large shaded hide and the right side is his roaming area. Bigger terracotta saucer is for water and the smaller one is food.

This is a better angle of the larger roaming area.

Right now I’m using a dual lamp with a 100w ZooMed basking spot lamp bulb and a 13watt reptisun 5.0 uvb bulb
Thanks in advance!

 

[Tom]

I am currently planning on building my own enclosure once I free up some more space but any tips to make Kirby’s current enclosure better would be awesome! He’s a Russian tortoise and around 6-7 months.
This is a top view, the left side is a large shaded hide and the right side is his roaming area. Bigger terracotta saucer is for water and the smaller one is food.
View attachment 357122
This is a better angle of the larger roaming area.
View attachment 357123
Right now I’m using a dual lamp with a 100w ZooMed basking spot lamp bulb and a 13watt reptisun 5.0 uvb bulb
Thanks in advance!

Hello and welcome.

You have found and followed the typical wrong advice that is everywhere. The same wrong info has been passed from generation to generation for decades. Almost everyone starts out this way.

Here is what I see:
1. Babies do better in closed chambers.
2. Your substrate needs to be damp, but there wooden enclosures will quickly rot and disintegrate if kept damp.
3. What is that substrate? Soil? Soil should never be used, and if that is perlite in the soil, it can kill your tortoise. Remove it ASAP.
4. Spot bulbs should never be used over tortoises. No halogens or MVBs either. You need a regular incandescent flood bulb.
5. 5.0 type bulbs make almost no UV.
6. The cfl type UV bulb sometimes burn their eyes and should never be used.
7. The stick-on pet store dial type thermometers and hygrometers are notoriously unreliable and inaccurate. Use digital ones from the hardware store. Stay out of the pet store in general.
8. Good job with the terra cotta saucers. Those are great!

All the right info is here. There is also a temperate species care sheet and a heating/lighting breakdown for you near the bottom.

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