Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After losing my russian last april I pretty much ignored the tort forum (maybe a little reading from time to time and very little posting). I still miss my little guy.

Well, I finally caved and I'm buying a russian hatchling. Its been a while, so I've been reading up on everything again. Reeducating myself so to speak.

Now the big problem is I've found very little information on how to raise hatchlings properly. Most places I've looked said "Treat them just like the adults...same temps, food, etc...", yet I've seen posts here saying otherwise.
I recall Ed saying that dehydration is a much bigger risk in hatchlings.
Several places said to feed less than adults (duh), but not how much less. Russiantortoise.org says feed them as much as they'll eat in 20 minutes. This sound right?

I was planning on planting several wide pans with various weeds and grasses and fitting them into the enclosure. This way I can change pans every so often to have a nice grazing area at all times. Would this be a bad thing considering the "feed less" rule as stated above?

Any other advice, books or sites to review with good information?
Any other thoughts?

In the past I've recomended indoor/outdoor carpeting but over the last 3 years I've gone to this very fine sand.
I keep them in a rubbermaid shoe box with half the box always kept moist. I used to keep the box on my snake rack with no UV. A few tortoises did fantastic like this for 2 years. The Egyptians did not do well like this. I move their box into the adult enclosure with the dry side under the active uv heat lamp. I adjust the distance from the lamp depending on the ambient temperature.
I use little glass dishes to feed them and they get soaked every other day. I suggest if you have the time to soak the little guy daily. I feed greens every other day or when it is finished. The remains are left in the enclosure. If they eat the Mazuri, they will get that once or twice a week on alternate feedings. That is left for one day and removed.
This is what's giving me great results right now.
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

I used paper towels for my hatchling until his plastron healed up.

I then used a mix of clean soil and sand. roughly 50/50.
It seemed that the soil didn't dry out so quickly. Only problem was the soil clumps in the sand were hard to distinguish from dried feces.

I fed my little guy dandelions, clover, henbit, some greens and a little bit of mazuri. Added calcium/d3 regularly. When he was almost 1 yr old I put him outdoors in his own pen. This year (about age 1.5) I hibernated him for two months. He is now up and eating everything. And living indoors until about April.

Go to Darrell Senneke's site Hatchling Haven. Site hasn't been updated in 18 months, but the info is still excellent. Has everything you need on hatchling care. Tortoise Trust also has many good articles.

Darrell's site: http://home.earthlink.net/~rednine/

Ernie