Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello, i keep my yearling redfoot outdoors here in central florida. last year, i brought him inside whenever it was cold. i'd like for him to be able to stay outdoors year round though. his enclosure is 4x8' with a big mound of dirt at one end with a deep burrow in it. the enclosure has a "roof" made of hardware cloth covered with a sheet of weed control type cloth...the tough kind made from some sort of fiber.

the temps around here can dip into the low 30's a couple nights a year, but i wouldn't dream of exposing him to that. i am planning on heating his enclosure with a heat pad or heat emmitters or both, i'm not sure. how low can a redfoot survive. i understand that they dont hibernate because of their native climate and thus, aren't as cold hardy as some other torts. only a few nights a year would require heat, and it usually warms up the next day. i'm thinking of using a proportional controller from big apple. i just want to know how hardy they really are, not that i'd want to push the limits.

It's good that you want to take good care of them.
I have kept redfoots in S. Florida since 1974 and pretty much have always had them outside. In the winter, if temperatures are going to drop below 55 degrees they come in at night. But, if temps are only going to the 50's for a night or so, and the tortoise pen will get sun FIRST THING IN THE MORNING, adults can be left out with no problems. It kind of depends on if we are having an extended wet cold front, or just a passing cool spell.
I have also found that the so called 'Brazilian dwarf' redfoots are MUCH more cold tolerant than my northern redfoots ever were. They are active and feed and attempt breeding even when the daytime highs are only in the 60's. Again, they key is if their pen gets direct sunlight. That way, they can warm up from the exposure.
One thing though, watch the weather! If they are telling you that a cold front is approaching back off on the food. You don't want the redfoots getting cooled down with a bunch of undigested food in their gut.

...please also keep in mind, that you are not dealing with an
adult here, but a yearling with still a very small body mass.
Also, the temperature, at which they can 'survive', as you put it, should not be the issue, but the temperature, that keeps
them happy and healthy. By exposing them to low temperatures you
weaken their immune system. Even 20 degrees Celsius are cool for
redfoots, and if you check weather statistics from the regions
in South America, where Redfoots live in their natural habitats
you will see, that even in the dry season in wet-dry savannas
they are not exposed to anything lower than 18 degrees Celsius.
And in rainforest habitats temperatures will rarely drop under
24 - 26 degrees Celsius...

I have a friend who spent considerable time in Paraguay studying redfoots (and other turtles). They were in the Cerro Leon' region. In ONE DAY the temps went from nearly 100 F to nearly 40F! That night the temps went down near to freezing. This was routine for this area during their winter. The redfoots were very common in the thorn scrub (not rainforest or savanah).
While it is true a YOUNG redfoot should not be subjected to low temps and in captivity we should not abuse our captives.
But you also have to remember that redfoots are found in a HUGE area of South America and are not all from constantly warm regions.
Also, I have NEVER in almost 30 years of keeping redfoots, EVER had a cold related problem. My breeding record speaks for itself too.

This is really interesting. I have never read about temperature fluctuations like that in redfoot habitats. But that might be due to the fact, that not very much scientific literature on studies of redfoots in the wild is existing at all.
I was fortunate to recently get access to D. Moskovits' doctoral thesis, which she did in 1985 on Refoots and Yellowfoots in northwestern Brazil. She spent about 2 years there observing the two species, and to my knowledge this is the most detailed field study (in a comparatively small study area of course) available. A lot of scientific literature on redfoots seems to be published in Spanish only.
If you know of any published field studies (did your friend publish his observations?) I would be very grateful, if you could pass the references to me!
Thanks,
Gaby

I really envy her doing that study. She told me once that she would sometimes find 4 or 5 adults RFs under a single fruiting tree. I would faint!
Some of the study that I mentioned was published in RADIATA magazine (available in English) I think last year. I have it around here somewhere. More will be published in the August issue I have been told.
The habitat in the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay is very harsh and completely unlike the study area that Debby Moskovits was in.
The redfoots there are also enormous with record and near record individuals being found.

I am thrilled to gather from your post, that you seem to know D. Moskovits! I was only able to get her thesis as an inter- university library loan through the university I am working for, and reading it I felt so sorry, that all that interesting information will never reach all those people, who keep redfoot tortoises and might be very interested to learn as much as possible about their life in their natural habitat.
Did you ever ask her, if she didn't consider to publish (at least part of) her work? I know of a few articles she published after her thesis,- but there is so much more!
Reading her thesis is giving me an enormous amount of joy and I find it so exciting! Receiving it at the library was like Christmas and birthday in one day!

University Microfilms Inc. in Ann Arbor ,Michigan.

I used to correspond with Dr. Moskovits (Debby) years ago. She is a very neat lady. She is currently (and has been for years)at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
And she has published a number of papers on RFs based on her study at Maraca'.

Thanks a lot!
Maybe I will try to contact her one day...

B.T.W. I just checked, and the 'Radiata' magazine you mentioned is unfortunately only available in the US (I live in Canada).
What a pity...

first of all, thanks for the info. and you mentioned that the gran chaco redfoots are large with individuals near record size. do you happen to know what size is the "record?" just out of curiosity i suppose.

Acc. to Pritchard ('The Turtles of Venezuela') the largest recorded representative of the species is a male from Brazil with 51.2 cm SCL. Maybe this record has been beaten though in the meantime.
In Moskovits' study the average for adult male SCL was 33.5 cm, average adult female 30.5 cm and average juvenile 14.9 cm.

I don't have the photo in front of me right now but I do have a picture of a friend with a captive redfoot in a Paraguayan zoo that is enormous. I want to say that it is something like 50.5 cms but I will check the photo tomorrow to make sure. I will post if it is different. In any case, the AVERAGE adult from this region is very large with 16 and 17 inchers being found all the time. The RADIATA article mentions the huge size of these animals.
I would also point out that although they have not been officially discribed as a subspecies, this race is very clearly distinct from the northern populations.

Please keep in mind that the study is on a very limited population in a very limited area for a species that has a huge range. This is by no means an attempt to belittle a fantasitc study but to make a point that many of these extensive studies on various herps are very limited in scope yet very specific. (if that makes sense)
Ed

I have redfoots and yellowfoots housed outdoors in S florida. they have a cbs hut with a plywood roof. I fixed a sheet of flashing inside with a 250W ceramic heater for those cold nights. the door is strips of heavy plastic that they can easily walk through. when it's in the 30's and 40's at night outside it stays a toasty 60-70 inside their house. They seem to enjoy the warmth.
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Bennett
www.beardiedragon.com