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All,

This weekend I will be rescuing two Russian Tortoises from a friend who can no longer take care of them. They are male and female, and appear to be about 4~5 years old. The people I am acquiring them from have always kept them indoors. I will housing them in an outdoor pen that I just finished (see pix) I have a couple of questions:

1.) Since they are male and female, would they each need their own hide boxes, or would they be happier in one larger box? (They get along fine now)

2.) Since they are currently kept indoors, will the transition affect them too much? In the Santa Cruz mountains where I live, the daily temps are in the 70’s and 80's, and it can dip to the high 40’s at night. I plan on pre-digging them some burrows so that they won’t have to do too much on the first night to get underground, but they won’t have a heater.

Thanks!

If the male is not constantly pursuing the female for mating purposes, then you can keep them in the same enclosure and let them use the same hidebox. If he suddenly becomes amorous (the sunlight can do that) then watch the female for injuries.

Nice enclosure.

As far as temps go, my experience with them indicates you can keep them out with temps in the 40s at night as long as they are dry. If the ground is dry and not too hard packed, they might be OK in the burrows. I live in an area of hard-packed clay, so I made a brick floor for the hide box and stuffed newspaper into the box when it was cool outside.

My concern would be the change in environment. Your enclosure looks like it is in a corner of a fenced area. Will they receive direct sunlight at least 8 hours a day? If not, they may not be very active, since it will seem like a late autumn day with restricted daylight. Also, if they've been indoors for several years, they may be sensitive to the overnight lows in the 40s. You should definitely keep an eye on them for the first couple weeks, and possibly consider bringing them in at night until they've had a few weeks exposures to a milder temperature variation (say from lows 50s-60s). Once they seem OK with that, then let them experience the full range.

Best of luck!

Yeah, the male should definitely be watched for aggression. If they have not been kept in great conditions the male will be less likely to pursue the female as heavily.

I know that with my trio the male will go after one female, then the other, and then he will usually be tired for a bit, and this way neither of the females get overly stressed or chewed up (he can get pretty aggressive, though he has only ever shed blood once and it was a tiny nick). Often during the winter they naturally slow down and very rarely do I hear or see them going at it, but just this past weekend we had a good hot day so I put them out in their pen and as soon as they were in the sunlight the male got that look in his eye. Every since then (almost a week ago) they haven't been outside since that day, but the male is still going nuts and mounting the females all day long.

One of these years I am going to get some good eggs from them. Right now the male is about 3.5 years old (captive bred) and there is not a lot of info as to when he will become potent. He is over 5" scl and enjoys mounting his the female torts, but he is still very young.

Good luck with the new tortoises! Just watch them and see how they act in the new environment. If the male is constantly pursuing the female you could consider getting a couple of hiding spots that only fit one tortoise at a time. I did that once in my outdoor enclosure and the female tried to take refuge while the male was still on top of her. She scraped him off and he was on his back (though he is very good at righting himself).

Thanks for the info everyone.

I asked the current owners if they could hang onto the torts for another week to see if the overnight temps raise a bit. I'll wait until the lows are at least in the low 50's before setting them outside full-time.

1/2 of the enclosure they'll live in gets full sun all day long, and ambient temps can get into the low hundreds during the summer. Believe it or not, the other end which stays shady all day, can be up to 30 degrees lowers (temps taken in the soil) That differential, combined with burrowing and the hide box I provided, should provide adequate temperature gradients.

I devised a hide box for the two of them that consists of an irrigation controller cover (see pix) It's all heavy wall plastic and is meant to be buried, so their shouldn't be much deterioration cause by the elemenets. It's also UV protected, so the sun shouldn't eat it up too quickly. I used a jigsaw to cut a mouse hole on one side so that they can walk straight into it. It also has a removable top, so that I can observe what's going on inside, and/or insert hay or newspaper if it's too cold. It's also waterproof!

Sounds good.

I know during one year my russians endured highs of over 100 (with high humidity) and overnight lows in the 40s. As long as they start out in good health, they seem very durable.

Best of luck.