Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, so, we'll start from the begining. I love reptiles. I have 3 corn snakes, and they take up a lot of my room, and school and work take up the rest of my time.

Now the problem.

Yesterday, for my birthday, my girlfriend gave me a Russian Tortoise. He is palm sized, but I don't know how old, since she picked him up at Petco.

Now, it was an amazingly nice gesture..but I don't know anything about tortoises. The last turtles I had were Eastern Box Turtles from Georgia, and they proptly died when my cats peed in their sand box. I was only 7.

I've read a bunch of forums and care sheets, but I have a problem. I can only put this guy in a 20gallon tank, because that is honestly all I have room for. I feel awful, but I can't give up on this guy, cause I want to make it work.

Now here are my questions:

What bedding do I use?
The guys at PreHistoric Pets said to use rabbit pelets, but russiantortoise.org says that's the worst bedding. Any suggestions from keepers?

Why won't he eat?
He won't eat any of the expensive stuff I bought him at the grocery store, but when I take him out in the backyard he has no problem eat the grass back there. Is eating grass a problem? I'm pretty sure it's bermuda.

Does he need the heat lamp for heat, or for sun.
I was wondering about this, because I already have 2 others and 2 heating pads on in my room at all times, for my snakes. So, does the lil' guy actually need it for light, or not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I REALLY don't know what i'm doing here. I try to take him out back as much as I can, when i'm home. My cats are having a field day trying to figure out what he is, but nothing has really gone wrong yet. He seems to be healthy enough, his shell looks like it's chipped in 2 places on the bottom, but I can't tell yet. As soon as I can get him eating, I will start giving him so calci-powder.

Thanks!
Andrew

"Impulse" pets are bad news...

You'll definitely want something bigger than a 20 gallon. Heck, I understand glass can stress them out badly since they don't understand what glass is (they see an open space, but can't get through it).
Outdoors, my guy has a 5 foot by 10 foot pen. When he's inside, he's in a 3 foot by 4 foot pen in my living room and I wish I could make it bigger.

Also, I'm very curious about where the pet store GOT the little guy. I've NEVER seen a single pet store carry Captive Bred russians. Meaning the majority of pet store russians are wild caught...i.e chock full of parasites and sickness. I spent about $1500 on my first russian...the majority of that was vet bills trying to get him healthy.
If you want to find out for sure if he was wild caught...ask your girl how much the guy cost. If it was about $100, you can be pretty sure he was wild caught. Captive bred costs about $150-200 straight from a BREEDER. Since a pet store has to sell for about double the base cost to make a profit, you'd see captive bred russians in a pet store for $300-400.

I'd definitely suggest a vet check-up either way.

Captive bred Russian tortoises haven't cost $150-200 in many years. Now days it's not uncommon to find them for less than $100 because so many are reproducing in captivity.

If you must use the 20 gal. tank, mask off the bottom with tape or cardboard so the tort can't see through it. I've always used cypress mulch for bedding. Let him go outside as often as possible & eat whatever he likes. The sunshine will do him good.
.

"Captive bred Russian tortoises haven't cost $150-200 in many years. Now days it's not uncommon to find them for less than $100 because so many are reproducing in captivity."

I haven't seen many. Heck the classifieds are all around $125 here (although there was one ad for 95).

Either way, thats from breeders. Petco and all those chains aren't the type of place to do buisness through a breeder and even if they did you're looking at prices around $200 or more (again, they double their price to get a profit).
Petco and all them will get a much better turnover if the animals are cheap. And the cheapest out there are still wild caughts DISPITE more russians being bred in captivity.

And I maintain that since 99% of the pet stores go through a distributor, the price markup goes up TWICE. Once for the pet store and once for the distributor. And since its pretty easy to get russians right off the boat for $25 a pop, you're looking at a distributor selling them for $50 and the store selling them for $100.

As for a 20 gallon. Gee's thats just crazy. I'd never put a tort in a 20. I wouldn't put one in a 30 or 40...just too small.
Maybe for a short term quarantine pen...but you'd be better off using a 50 gallon tote.

My indoor pen in 3x4 feet and I feel even THAT is too small. My outdoor pen is 5x10 and I'd even like THAT bigger.

A 20 gal is just silly.

Definently dont use the 20 gallon, build a tortoise table, about 8x5 foot, that good for 1 russian. For diet, grasses are good, you might want to go to the vet, and deworm the tortoise, because its most likly wild cought, i doubt its Captive bred. Russians can cost a lot, when it comes to bring them back to health.

ALl i would advise is that you build a big pen, you need a heat bulb for basking, and a UVB bulb. You will need a mim. of 5x5 i would go 8x5 foot enclsoure, and even bigger if you can. You should have deep substrate they love to dig. Diet should consist of all kinds of grasses and weeds, and leafy greens, dont feed lettus it a filler food.

Its rough getting a pet without knowing, especially a tortoise, since tortoise need a lot of room, UVB bulbs, and sticked diets.

You should try and go to the vet and deworm sometime this week.

Alright, so here's my second problem. I have no room.

Like, none. Unless I get rid of my corns, and there's no way I could do that.

When you say tote, do you mean those rubbermaid things? Those work? I could keep one of those on my floor..would I use a heating pad for that?

Also, do your russians sleep a lot? And when do they go into hibernation. It's comming on winter..if it's now, I could put him away for a month or two to get things settled.

Also, do tortoises gorge before hibernation like my snakes?

I really appreciate your responses. It breaks my heard to know that I have something from the wild, AND that I can't take proper care of it.

If I can figure out how to put pictures in here, I will show you my dilema. Photobucket doesn't seem to work.

Thanks again,
Andrew

Never hibernate any animal that you haven't had long enough to know that it's truely healthy (at least 1 year of good health).

If you love the tortoise, you can find room for a proper enclosure. If you don't, then you probably should find a new home for the little guy. I'm not try to be offensive or anything, but I have said since BEFORE my first reptile that I didn't have the room. Then after I got my beardie, and took up some space for his tank, more animals started coming in (rescues and ones that I purchased from breeders), and for every single one I said I don't have enough room. I'm up to seven reptiles now (3 of them being russian tortoises), and you know what? I do have the room. It's all about making things work. Mostly the reason I never though I had the room for them was because I didn't feel like I could give up more living space for reptiles, but now that I have, I'm happy I've done it. I think you just need to make some compromises with yourself.

Also, another reason you probably 'don't have the room' is because you're using aquariums. Once I got rid of most of my aquariums I had much more room. They don't stack, so you take up a lot of extra room.

What I would suggest is trying to make a pen about 4'x3', larger if you can, if you can't fit that, 4'x2' would be a minimum. Don't go smaller than that. If you make a pen with legs and just kind of tuck i somewhere in your room where you won't run into it all the time (might have to take something out of your room to do this), you should have a pretty good start for a tort habitat.

Yeah, I agree.
When I first decided to make a large indoor pen, I just rearranged the furniture a bit.
At one point I had the pen halfway under a large buffet table to take up less room...

As for aquariums...yeah, they are a pain trying to find room. I'd suggest buying a shelving unit for them...you can usually find a cheap, but strong plastic fit-together shelf from most hardware stores.

As for the tote...yeah...large 50 gallon rubbermaids totes...but again, I'd only suggest that for short term keeping. Bigger is always better.

50 gallong tote, would be used only for short term. A russian can't live in such little space. I would build a 4x4 or a little bigger. If you cant house it with the right size enclsoure, and all the equipment, i would just find a new home for the tortoise. I know it was a gift, but sometimes you have to think of the animals.

Side note:
What type of lighting do you have?

Dont forget to take your russian to the vet this week, you need to deworm him/her, or you will have major problems to come.

Alright, sorry for taking up so much boards room, but i've gotta make this work out.

So, i've requisitioned more space from my roomie, and I may be able to get this working. I just have to figure out if I can stack my two 40's on top of each other without burning my house down, because my snakes are lazy. If I can get a stacking shelf, then I can move them there and use their old space for the tortoise.

Now it's question time.

The way I see it, we have this old unused place on the side of my yard that we used to have plants in, but no longer do. Yet I still have the planter boxes. So here's what I was thinking..if I dug a hole, and put some chicken wire or other screening down in there so he couldn't work, and sunk the planter box in and grab a hinged top, would that be viable? I mean..outside does the tortoise need heat lamps and such since it's already in the elements?

Also, it's startin' to get semi-chilly down here in SoCal..what are your thoughts on keeping the animal outside while i'm in class, usually from 8am to 4 pm. I could bring him back inside before I went to work.

Has anyone had problems with felines? My cats are way interested, but I was thinking with the screen, they wouldn't be able to break in too well. I danno, any views on this would be welcomed.

Oh yeah, and would I put the pin closer to my house, which gets sun most of the day, or closer to the fence which loses sun later in the day, due to sun rotation? Such planning..

Lastly, the whole sleeping thing. When I take him outside, he's totally energetic, but inside he sleeps a LOT. Now, he's not cold, I could understand the sleeping if he were. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks again guys.

I live in so. cali. also, and the wheather is good all year for a russian outdoors, only thing you need to worry about is rain/and cold, they cant handle that, so when rainy seasons come around, which will you should have a indoor enclosure ready. A 50 gallon tote. can work for that. Also no you dont need lighting out back since you have the sun. Make sure you make it so it can dig or climb out, and make sure there is sun on him in the mornings at the least.

What part of cali. do you live in? I know around here the nights get cold in winter, liek low 50s sometimes mid 40s or colder. But the days ussully warm up in the days to at least 60. Also winter is overcast a lot which sucks.

Its quite common for the Russians that come in from the wild to be injected with a releasing hormone oxytocin witch makes them lay eggs.Thousands of them are treated like this every year when they come in gravid.They are considered captive"hatched'instead of captive born,indicating bred in captividy.They should be fine animals if cared for correctly before you get it.They also like to dig and live in a deep hole in winter.The soil in some places(N.Fl.for one) is bad for their shells and they will rot.Some people will keep them in a refrigerator at 50F for part of the year.Look at were they come from,"cold" as a ...well you know.I like these better

Also, i've placed black vinyl along the outsides of the tank, and this seems to be deterring him well enough. I couldn't think of anything else.

I just want to know why he's sleeping so damn much.

Welcome to the world of tortoise keeping. It is a very interesting group.

TFH has a book on Russians by an EJ Pirog. You can get it at amazon.com. It addresses all your questions and more.

The important points is to keep him warm and soak him daily. Try to feed him dark leafy greens. Get a fecal sample off to the vet and treat him for any parasites.

The 20 gal long should work just fine until you decide if you need something better.

Ed

>>Also, i've placed black vinyl along the outsides of the tank, and this seems to be deterring him well enough. I couldn't think of anything else.
>>
>>I just want to know why he's sleeping so damn much.
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

"TFH has a book on Russians by an EJ Pirog. You can get it at amazon.com. It addresses all your questions and more. "

Ugh! That Mr. Pirog is a nutcase!

Not really of course...
In actuality, I didn't realise the aforementioned author even had a book out...I personally SHALL pick it up ASAP.

no doubt.

>>"TFH has a book on Russians by an EJ Pirog. You can get it at amazon.com. It addresses all your questions and more. "
>>
>>
>>Ugh! That Mr. Pirog is a nutcase!
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

BUT I'm willing to bet the book is good

I got my boy on aspen pellets, I think it's called Gentle Touch, you can get it at Amazon Reptiles in Montclair. Great stuff. Harmless and smells nice.

I have to keep Ben indoors. He is in a 67 gallon long terrarium, not the greatest but what can I do? I dont want fire ants eating him or when it gets to raining later, he'll drown in a hibernation hole. He does sleep alot, but he eats good, poops good, he gets out for walks to work them muscles and he has a nice warm bed of timothy hay to sleep in. I gotta heat light and UVB light for him. The glass is covered so he doesnt pace or go nuts trying to get out.
Im gonna try to post a pic...