Any Tortoise Owners?

[HHI944]

I've been thinking about getting a tortoise for a while (Why not?) and picked up a 100 gallon herp terrarium for next to nothing by chance the other day. It should make a nice indoor enclosure. I've looked at Red Foots, Greeks, Russians and even considered a very young Sulcata. I've also been thinking about a hingeback. Anyone have experience, tips, etc? Looking to keep the price around $200, but it's flexible.

[BeyGon]

Where do you live, we had a couple Desert Tortoise's and they had the back yard. They would thunder across the yard for a Hibiscus.

[vash]

ahhh..i had a young female sulcata named HANNA. excellent pet. i lost her in a "custody" battle with a GF. a sulcata is the most active.BUT they get huge fast. your kids could ride one. red foots max out about the size of a football. pretty mobile, decent eaters.. my sulcata got to basketball size very fast. she would eat anything green. i never had leftover salad greens.

where do you live? summer months you could house her outdoors, but she will DIG..

if i had to do it again, i would get a leopard tortoise. more shy, small sized, very cute. some people do not like them shy. they keep clamped up, alot of the time.

we had russians and greeks at our pet store, but i never had one.

[HHI944]

I live in Hilton head, sc. Right above savannah, GA, on the coast. Pretty much any tortoise would be ok in an outside pen nearly year round I think.

[vash]

ok. they can be outdoors summer. here is what i remember. they need a heat pad under the bedding. i also had a mild heat lamp. in addition to all of this, you will need a fluorescent light that provides a full spectrum for calcium development. for bedding i used rabbit food. tortoises are not neat eaters, they grub. if they swallowed a rabbit food pellet, no harm no foul.

sulcatas are brave, and move around alot. so does a red foot (or yellow foot). get a pair and i have seen them breed. the male has a concave bottom shell. designed to fit onto the curve female upper shell. i love the leopards. they have cool shells.

[HHI944]

I keep leaning towards the sulcata. It seems that they make very friendly and enjoyable pets. I've spent a little time with a fair sized 8 year old (probably around 18-20 inch carapace length) and he's a really neat and personable animal.

[daepp]

Wow - I didn't realize how universal the hibiscus was.

We have had several desert tortoises (bread in captivity) and hibiscus blossoms are their heroin!

They make great pets BTW!

[Evans, Marv]

My wife got a Sulcata for a classroom pet. She liked the looks of it and they didn't tell her how large they grow - 200 lb. max. It was about the size of half of an overgrown soft ball when she bought it - $130. It was around a year & a half old at the time. I made an enclosure for it to live in at home and a house out of one of those fake, fiberglass rocks from H.D., and it lived (mostly slept) in there for quite a while. She would take it to class on Monday and bring it home on Friday. I made a collapsible corral for it so she could put it outside on the grass during the day at school and a dog house for it to stay inside the classroom at night. It got too big and liked to nip at the kids' shoes, so she decided to keep it home. Now, it's around 50+ lbs. At our place now, I made a 3K s.f. back yard for it to stay in with grass, sprinkler system, rocks, trees. fence, and a 4 ft. x 4 ft. x 3 ft. house, fully insulated with two 150W ceramic heat emitters. If you get one of these things, you need to become knowlgeable about what they eat, the parameters of their living environment, health needs, etc., etc. Theyhave to have sunlight to digest their food & for vitamin D. There are lots of things they shouldn't eat that have certain minerals and other things like oxalates. If you don't know about those things, they can end up with kidney and/or liver damage. You're not supposed to let their temperature drop below around 70 degrees for too long beause of possible pheumonia. We feed it little amounts of things like sweet potato, endive, okra, lettuce, apple, pear, banana. They are supposed to mostly subsist on grass, so if you over feed them, the excess nutrients contribute to shell growth called pyramiding. It comes when I call it (but not too fast) because it knows I might give it some tasty morsel. They are active, curious (you have to continually run them off if you are doing someting in the yard), and actually have a small bit of personality for a reptile brain. Ours has always had a "house' to live in and hasn't done much digging, but they are supposed to be able to dig up a tree or shrub a few inches in diameter in an afternoon and make burroughs in the wild. I'm the one who now is mostly responsible for it, and I may tell my wife to not get it if I had to do it over again but I wouldn't get rid of it now.

[HHI944]

This is one I'm considering. He's ~4 years old and 12 inches.

I've heard a few horror stories about shops not sufficiently preparing people who buy baby Sulcata's.

I've already passed by a few tortoises due to pyramiding issues. From what I've read, pyrimiding is usually just the most visible sign of what can be pretty serious health issues.

[Henry Schmidt]

I've had California Desert Tortoises for my whole life. Well at least since I was 7.
They are great companions as long as you don't need a hug.
My female died last year after 47 years.
Her favorite food was bananas but as a good dad I made her eat her greens. Kale seems to be the one she put up with on a regular basis.
She was a breeding tortoise for her middle years so I was left with one of her sons.
Tuche' who is just turning 30. He still has an eye for the ladies.

Babs and son



And Tuche' "The Dude".

[GH85Carrera]

Like this?

[CurtEgerer]

I bought an African Leopard Tortoise for my daughter about 7 years ago (which I sort of inherited after she left for college ). Their size is limited to the enclosure you keep them in. If it wasn't caged, it could get to about 2 feet in diameter! It's been about 8 inches for a few years now. These things eat like crazy. Main diet is hay, collard/turnip/mustard greens and dandelion greens. Also carrots, tomatoes, apple slices, etc. It usually eats 2 handfuls of food per day. In the summer, I just pick grass and leafy weeds from the field behind my house or let him out to graze.

[vash]

curt..that doesnt look like a leopard. but its been a while. that is the nicest cage EVER!!

i never gave my tortoises water. they got it from their food. i was told by a vet that watched our petstore, that in nature they didnt have a regular water source. so when they did come to one, they would drink it up. i was told that they were hardwired to guzzle it up, not knowing when they would come to any again. it was difficult on their kidneys.

my sulcata (i was told) is now at the el paso zoo. i hope so.

my friend has a breeding pair in a barn here locally. i always wanted another one, but they do get huge.

[Laneco]

Originally Posted by Henry Schmidt

I've had California Desert Tortoises for my whole life.

Did anyone else find it ironic that the guy who builds crazy fast Porsche's has a tortoise for a pet?

For heaven's sake, Henry, I would have thought you had a CHEETAH! -LOL!

angela

[HHI944]

I'm with Vash, that doesn't look like a leopard and, unlike some animals, tortoises will outgrow their enclosure.

[Henry Schmidt]

Dogs, cats, turtles, peacocks, ex-wives, stray strippers, you name it, I'll feed it.

The big problem I have now is that the Peacocks eat Touché food.


Touché lives in his own little world but I'm getting ready to add water turtles to his habitat.

[CurtEgerer]

Originally Posted by HHI944

I'm with Vash, that doesn't look like a leopard and, unlike some animals, tortoises will outgrow their enclosure.

Here's a better pic. I'm no tortoise expert, but was told by the pet shop it was a Leopard and it looks like those I've seen on the interwebs (2nd pic), but I'm open to more info on what it might be.

We originally kept the tortoise in a 20 gallon aquarium. It never got beyond 4 inches in 4-5 years. I then read that one should never keep a tortoise in a glass enclosure because they don't know what glass is and constantly try to walk thru it. He definitely had that behavior. So I built this new much larger cage out of an old end table (thanks for the comments on that - it turned out pretty cool). Within weeks/months he was noticeably growing and quickly doubled in size, but hasn't grown since then.

As for the water, from everything I've read they need water to cool themselves down since they are cold-blooded. The enclosure is supposed to have a hot zone, a cool zone and water so he can regulate his temp. He frequently lays in the water. Again, open to other info on this ....

[vash]

oh, yea..that's a leopard!! nice!

[willtel]

Cool pets. I have an aunt and uncle in England that have one but I'm not sure what kind it is. It recently had surgery to remove unfertilized eggs from it, apparently females produce and hold onto eggs unless they are fixed and eventually get bound up with them.

Anyone ever heard or dealt with that?

[Henry Schmidt]

Just for the record: Touché comes when you whistle and will eat from your hand. Except for the occasional walk-about, he's been a great pet.