Cuteness alert!

Daylilies are a healthy treat for tortoises... and since they are one of my favorite flowers, I have a lot of them in my garden. I love that Buttercup, our little Marginated baby, is smaller than even the smallest of the daylily blooms. I know she will end up much bigger than the flowers, as well as all my other tortoises... so I took some pictures of her eating a flower!

Buttercup taking a chomp out of a daylily

Snail Cozies?!!!

I promise you that I have NOT gone off the deep end. ;) I just like to crochet, and I like to giggle. One of my clients asked me to crochet a tiny lacy stegosaurus cozy for her baby tortoise, which happens to be the same size as our baby marginated tortoise, Buttercup. I had a little bit of the yarn left over... and so, not wanting to waste it, I made a snail cozy! I couldn't stop laughing, and so I took some pictures for you:

Buttercup and snail. Snail is being shy.

A snail in a cozy. What is this world coming to?!

Neither tortoises nor snails need cozies... but both are very funny!

Who wouldn't giggle about a snail in a cozy?!

I hope this made you smile just a little... or maybe laugh out loud?

The tortoise nursery

Keeping a hatchling tortoise involves a little more work than caring for a juvenile or adult tortoise. It helps that our little Marginated tortoise Buttercup had a really good start in life - she is healthy, spunky, active, eats well, and even self-hydrates (aka she drinks on her own!).

Buttercup, our wee Marginated baby

I thought some of you might like to see the 'nursery' I set up for her. She has one that is indoors, where she sleeps and spends her mornings, and one that is outdoors, which I move about a bit to provide both sun and shade.

The tortoise nursery

I purchased this large rubbermaid bin, and used a dremel cutting wheel to cut out most of the plastic lid. Then I zip-tied hardware cloth into that area (hardware cloth is similar to chicken wire, but has much smaller holes). This will help protect Buttercup from hawks, crows, cats, or whatever else might come through our yard during the daytime.

I filled the bin halfway with ACE topsoil. It has no fertilizer and no perlite. I included a little hill, a cave, some rocks, a water dish (which used to be a lid for some container), and a bunch of hens-and-chicks and weeds (dandelion, plantain, violet, thistle) from the yard. Of course Buttercup decided to burrow into the dirt outside of the cave, making her own... and she dug up some of the plants and/or ate them. Tortoises are such little tanks!

Buttercup, exploring

I mist the whole enclosure several times a day - letting the soil surface dry out in between. I also soak Buttercup in shallow, warm water for about 20 minutes daily. As mentioned above, I end up moving the bin a few feet at a time to provide sunshine and shade. Around 4pm it gets hot enough in the side yard where the tortoises live that Buttercup digs down into the soil. Then she comes back out around 6 to snack and explore some more.

Buttercup chomping pieces off of the cuttlefish bone

Baby tortoises have a lot of growing to do, and to grow healthy bones and a healthy shell, tortoises need a lot of calcium. I provide cuttlefish bones in both of Buttercups nursery bins, and am delighted to see that she helps herself to it.

Cuttlefish bones are a good source of calcium!

Look at how big she is opening her mouth to take a bite! She nibbles on the cuttlefish bone almost daily.

The bottom line for a good tortoise nursery: protection from predators, good substrate, humidity, warmth, food, shelter, calcium, water. Keeping baby tortoises hot and humid results in beautiful, smooth shells (along with good food, good natural UVB light, and calcium). I will change the landscape in there periodically to keep it interesting and stimulating. She will likely out-grow this container by next Spring, but for now it is just right!

Custom 'Taco' tortoise cozy

I love creative challenges! One of my clients asked me if I could make a 'taco' tortoise cozy for her tortoise who is named Taco. It took a bit of experimenting, but here is what I came up with: 

...maybe we should taco 'bout this... 

Crocheting this cozy was much more involved than the others I've made, but I could imagine it may become quite popular.

Roz modeling the 'taco' tortoise cozy.

What kind of food should I crochet for YOUR tortoise? ;)

Our baby Marginated tortoise has a name!

I think I have settled on a name for our little Marginated tortoise. My husband called her a "margarine" tortoise the other day, which brought me to butter, which brought me to 'Buttercup' - if she really turns out to be female, and some day we get a male, then we'll name him Wesley. ;)

Little Buttercup seems to be settling in really well. She has eaten every day, is active and curious, and loves to explore. She seems to enjoy her daily soaks, and doesn't hide when I mist her.

I move her big tub outside every afternoon so that she can catch some natural sunshine. She seems to like being out there, and it will be fun to watch her explore when I've built her a larger outdoor enclosure. 

I measured and weighed her yesterday. Buttercup is 2.5" long (6.35cm) and weighs 60g. I look forward to watching this spunky little one grow and thrive!

Bathtime and weigh-in!

Except for our baby Marginated tortoise, all the torts are currently living outside for the Summer. Just to be sure that they are staying hydrated, I soak them once a week (the baby gets soaked every day). I keep my tortoises separated by species, so bath-time is really the only chance I have to take a picture of them all together.

My little tortoise crew soaking in warm water

The current count is: 5 Russian tortoises (1 male, 4 females), 1 Greek, 1 Marginated. These are all my own, I am not currently fostering any tortoises (I'm sure that will change).

Summertime weigh-in

About once every half year I weigh my tortoises to make sure they are growing healthily. Here are the result's from today's weigh-in:

Our Greek tortoise, Boo - 480g

The Russian tortoises:
Jill - 452g
Roz - 478g
Mila - 628g
Timmy - 908g
Lady - 1075g

Our baby Marginated tortoise - 60g

It looks like all the tortoises are healthily gaining weight. Hooray!

New tortoise family addition!

We have had an un-planned addition to our tortoise family yesterday: a small Marginated tortoise baby! This little one hatched last November to a tortoise owner near us. At almost 9 months old, she is past the sensitive stage, but still small enough to fit into the palm of my hand. 

I haven't decided on a name yet - the eggs were incubated at temperatures that should result in females, so until proven otherwise, I am going to assume she is a female. We likely won't be able to tell for sure for several years.

I have never held a tortoise this small. She is too darn cute! She sure doesn't hold still much though. It was hard to get good pictures!

Just look at that cute little tortoise belly! Did you know that Marginated tortoises have a slightly hinged plastron? It is more obvious in an adult.

She was kept outdoors since April - she has a beautiful, healthy shell (with very minimal pyramiding from the first few weeks of her life, which she spent indoors), and she is active, alert, bright-eyed and spunky. I have set up an indoor enclosure for her, but she will spend afternoons outside in a protected little enclosure. 

I haven't measured and weighed her yet. I didn't want to disturb her too much today, since she was eating wonderfully, and exploring her enclosure.

It is going to be so fun watching her thrive and grow! So far all my tortoises have been rescues and 2nd hand... so it will be nice to start with a 'brand new' little one.

....so many tortoise cozies!

The tortoise cozy business is BOOMING, folks! Seriously, I am receiving several new orders every day, and I am working as quickly as I can.

Oh so many cozies...

This last week we were out of town, so I took the opportunity to close my Etsy shop for a few days, so as to get somewhat caught up on my custom orders. Can you believe that these cozies are only about half of the ones I've made in the last 2 weeks?!

Just for fun, I also created a few new designs:

The question is... who wins? The tortoise or the hare?

The flying pig - wings optional

And I played around with a few new color combinations:

Jill loves to eat Johnny Jump Ups, so this seemed like good colors for her.

If you are interested in having me make your tortoise a custom cozy, please swing by my Etsy shop, MossyTortoise and send me a private Etsy message. :) I look forward to hearing from you!

Our Russian tortoises' outdoor enclosure

Our outdoor tortoise enclosure is finished! I like to call it our tortoise garden - since it is built in the spot that used to have flower beds. I still have to hang the fish netting to protect the 5 Russian tortoises from crows and hawks, but otherwise it is fully usable. I have made the frame for a nice little cold frame, but still need to install the polycarbonate sheets. I'll post pictures of that when it's done.

The railing and hardware cloth are installed

I built a railing out of cedar, and installed hardware cloth for additional safety (to keep the tortoises in, and to keep kids out). The tortoise garden has 2 points of entry, where the railing is lower.

Timmy, one of the 5 tortoises who roams here

The tortoises really seem to love roaming about, digging in, and exploring. I have learned each of their favorite spots, so I know where to search to find them in the evening! Roz is the master digger: he makes burrows 2 ft deep that I have to pull him out of!

The view from the ground

I am still working on making some nice dry hiding spots for the tortoises. Until those are done, I've put a board in there (propped up by some rocks), as well as some flower pots.

The view of the length of the tortoise garden

The little seedlings from the tortoise seed mix are starting to come up - the tortoise garden will be filled with plants pretty soon where right now there is mostly dirt.

Plenty of room to roam!

My kids like to help me me bring the tortoises outside into their garden in the morning, and back inside in the evening. I try to involve them in the care, and my oldest son, who is 7, can already identify some of the plants that are edible for tortoises.

Driftwood hide

My friend gave me this nice piece of driftwood (in the picture above). The salt in the wood has helped preserve the wood, and the tortoises have dug out a nice little burrow under it. I have noticed that some aggressive spiders have started making funnel webs under there, so I need to set up some spider traps out of reach of the tortoises. I don't mind garden spiders, but it seems like this kind might bite the tortoises.

Lady enjoying the rocky basking area -
It's shaded for part of the afternoon, but the rocks are warm

I have tried to construct the terrain of the tortoise garden such that it has hills and different environments for the tortoises: dry shade, moist earth, sunny dirt, sunny rocks, different shrubs and plants and weeds. Each of the tortoises seems to have their favorite spots.

Little Jill, enjoying some sunshine

The tortoises got soaked before going outside this time, so their shells are pretty clean in these pics. I have to admit that I think grubby, dusty tortoises are the cutest of all... so next time I will post pictures of nice dirty tortoises instead of clean shiny ones!

Boo outside

Can you spot little Boo, our Greek tortoise, pretending to be a rock in his outdoor enclosure? 

Boo, trying to blend in

Boo is doing well, but he doesn't particularly seem to like being outside in his enclosure. He spends most of the time hiding in the little hide house, or under the weeds. Since he spends less time exploring and eating than I expected, it's starting to look a bit like a jungle in there... time to harvest some to feed to the other tortoises!

...a new tortoise cozy design: The Ladybug!

Happy Friday! I thought you might enjoy seeing the fun little Ladybug tortoise cozy I just finished for a customer... 

The Ladybug cozy

Outdoor enclosure progress - it's usable now!

I've been working on finishing our tortoise garden for some time now - and it is now finally usable! It is so important for tortoises to spend time outside, roaming and grazing and basking in the *real* sunshine. I started this project months ago, hunting for materials in the 'free' section of Craigslist, planning, digging, building... and little by little it has come together: a 5ft x 30ft outdoor tortoise enclosure.

A few of the tortoises, roaming about. All the plants are edible for the tortoises.

A lot of the plants I grow in our garden are safe for tortoises. I removed the ones that are poisonous, I added a few more safe ones, and also put out the Tortoise Lady's seed mix that my friend gave me. 

Those pavers get nice and hot in the sun!

Digging a trench all around the garden, and filling it with river rock and pavers in order to prevent the tortoises from escaping, was such hard work! However, I know it was necessary, and now I don't have to worry about any tortoises digging out.

Below is a view of the tortoise garden before I installed the hardware cloth (which is similar to chicken wire, but with smaller holes). As mentioned before, I first dug a trench all along the edges. I dug down until I got to solid packed clay/rock. Then I filled the trench in with river rock and pavers. I placed flat 11" x11" cement pavers over the filled-in trench, and then built the border, using re-claimed pressure treated wood a neighbor gave me. The posts are cedar, except for the corner posts, which I also got from the neighbor for free. I still need to build a railing on top, to make it all look a bit nicer, now that the hardware cloth is attached - I'll post pictures of that later. Finally, I am attaching fish net above it all, coming down from the eaves, to keep out crows and hawks.

The partition between Lady's area and the others will come down
once she has been with us for a few more months.

In addition to the shrubs that were already there, and the plants that I added, I also tried to make the landscape in the tortoise garden as interesting as possible. I made little hills, I put in dirt and rocks with different textures, and I built a few different hiding opportunities.

Timmy climbing up on top of one of the hides...

Tortoises are little tanks... they like to bulldoze, and I am fully aware that the tortoise garden won't stay as 'put together' as I would like it to. Do you see Timmy climbing onto the hide in the picture above? She has knocked all the rocks off of the top in the meantime. Oh well...

Lady pigging out on some turnip greens

Below is a view of the length of the tortoise garden, as seen from the edge of our lawn. These pictures are a few days old, so the hardware cloth isn't up yet. I'll post more updated pictures later on. The eaves of the roof overhang about half of the width of the tortoise garden, so it actually is pretty dry towards the back, even when it rains. I will have to run a sprinkler there during the heat of the summer to keep the plants happy.

The view of the length of the tortoise garden

We have all enjoyed watching the tortoises roam in a more natural environment. They always loved walking around in the grass, but we always had to worry that they would escape! Now we can sit back and relax.

Mila, coming out of the shade to get some more sun

If you are planning to build a tortoise garden, I recommend you research plants that are safe for tortoises. Some of them are delicious to the torts, others might not taste great to them, but are harmless if they do happen to take a few chomps out of something. There are good lists of tortoise-safe plants HERE and HERE.

Three of the tortoises roaming about

Raspberry leaves are a favorite snack for my tortoises, and a few of them will nibble on the hosta. The tall phlox (see above picture) is tasty to them, as well. The hens and chicks, dandelions and other smaller plants get mowed down pretty quickly...

Two of the tortoises grazing

Turnip greens seem to be a favorite. If it gets eaten down too far, I'll just put a gallon milk jug over top (with the bottom cut out) to protect it for a week or so, to give it a chance to grow back.

Lady enjoying the shade

A few weeds had naturally grown in this area, and are slowly being eaten away at.

Mila snacking some more

At the end of each day, I bring inside my very grubby, but very content tortoises. We have raccoons in our neighborhood, so I don't want to risk a tragic night-time event.

Do YOU have a spot in your yard where you can build a tortoise garden? An outdoor enclosure can be a s large or as small as you would like... and if you use re-claimed materials like I did, the cost will be virtually free, except for good old back-breaking digging and sweat...