I built a little tortoise house!

Today I built our Russian tortoises a little tortoise house. Its purpose is to provide a spot that is generally drier and warmer in the mornings and more chilly days. 

Jill is modelling the little house for me

 It has real siding, and a slanted plexi glass roof, so the rain will run off. The total cost was $0, since these are all re-claimed materials. It doesn't look 'fancy' but it will work great, I think.

The plexi glass allows the sun to shine inside to warm the interior.

The inside of the shelter is fairly roomy - 18" x 13" - so all 5 torts can, in theory, fit in here. Because Russian tortoises are territorial little space hogs, only 2 or 3 will end up spending the night in here.

An added bonus of the plexi glass: I can peek inside at the torts!

In addition to this very slapped together rustic tortoise house, I'm also working on building a cold frame (like a small green house) that has polycarbonate siding. I got lucky at a nursery close-out sale and got a whole stack of odd-sized pieces for $5. 

'Shot' lettuce = yummy treat for tortoises!

The tortoises got to eat a special treat today: my friend gave me a big bag of lettuce that had gone to seed in her garden, and therefore was too bitter for humans to eat. 

Freshly bathed, and chowing down!

 The tortoises seemed to think this stuff was candy. The scarfed it down like there was no tomorrow!

Look how 'domey' little Jill is getting. She is shiny from her bath.

Even little Jill, who is the smallest of the Russian torts, ate a sizeable portion, and then looked up at me, seemingly asking for more. I think she is actually going to end up growing to be a very large Russian tortoise. Just look at how tall her shell has gotten - now she just needs to catch up in length, too! I am keeping her separate from the other Russian tortoises for the cold season, because she got picked on too much last year, and I don't want to let that happen again.

Buttercup enjoyed a few leaves, too, along with a small aloe leaf.

Buttercup, our marginated tortoise, is growing beautifully, as well. She weighed in at 72g the other day, and her new growth continues to be healthy and smooth.

Buttercup meets a snail V2.0

Our little Marginated tortoise got to meet another snail. It finally rained here, so there were quite a few in our garden - I think these are European snails. People are always surprised to see them in our area. Regardless, the design on this particular snail's shell looked really pretty, so before feeding it to our redfoot tortoise, I took a few pictures of it with on top of Buttercup. 

Giving snails a ride makes me grumpy! (Or maybe that's just my face)

I found a nice sunny spot on a rock in your back yard that was the perfect staging area for these pictures. No flash or extra lighting was necessary.

Weeee!

Hopefully in the next year or so we will have some home-hatched Russian tortoise babies... which will start out about the same size as this snail!

Two beautiful shelled creatures...

On a side note, it is a real pain to rinse snail trail off of a tortoise shell. It's not quite water soluble, and kind of sticky. I don't put anything but water on Buttercup's shell, so I finally just scrubbed it a little with an old toothbrush.

Breakfast time.... and they are all still a little grumpy.

The outdoor enclosure of my Russian tortoises is planted with a variety of weeds and other edible plants... but at this point in the year, a lot of the weeds have been grazed away. I end up having to collect food in our yard and my friends' yards every few days.

'We're not ready to eat yet. It's still too early'

Today when I fed the tortoises, the Russian torts all came over to the food pile, and then promptly all sat down facing away from each other. I quickly took a picture - they have gotten so used to having all the space of the tortoise garden that I think they were a little grumpy about the sudden proximity to each other!

Hibiscus season!

All my tortoises love hibiscus flowers. Knowing this, I have planted 3 different varieties: a blueish purple 'Rose of Sharon', a perennial hibiscus (which dies back in the Fall, and comes back larger every Spring), and a hot pink bush variety, of which I forget the name.

Jill, going to town on some hibiscus blooms

The first blooms show up in mid July, and I usually get new ones through October. Tortoises can eat the leaves, as well as the flowers. I pick new ones every day and mix them into the greens. They are so nutritious!

If you end up with too many flowers, you can place them on a piece of paper and sun dry them. Then place them in a plastic bag, and crumble them over your tortoise's food in the Winter! With all the tortoises I have, I never end up having any left over...

Give me more!

I will write a post about healthy tortoise diet soon, since I have been receiving a lot of questions about what to feed.

My Russian tortoises get fed exclusively dark leafy greens, with the exception of flowers. I supplement with cuttlefish bone for a little extra calcium, and I sprinkle TNT powder on their food during the Winter. During the Summer I feel that they are getting enough of a variety in their food that it isn't necessary to add the TNT, especially since so much of their food comes from grazing in their outdoor enclosure, which is planted with a wide variety of weeds and tortoise-edible plants.

Nom nom nom

My front garden gets a lot of compliments, and I just love it when people walk by our house and stop to smell some flowers, or even to take a picture with their cell phones. My dirty secret is that a lot of what I grow in our garden is meant to be tortoise food. If it happens to look pretty, that is just an added bonus! :) I also intersperse edible plants such as cherry tomatoes, rhubarb, zucchini, squash etc. in my flowerbeds - we love eating the fresh veggies, and it looks nice.

...a redfoot?! Oh my!

I know I keep saying that my little tortoise family is complete. Somehow, however, tortoises in need keep finding their way to me. The boys and I got to go on a little road trip the other day, and along the way, we picked up this little redfoot tortoise.

Our new tortoise resident

The guy who gave this beautiful creature to us had gotten her from a woman who kept her in a 10 gallon aquarium. He built a little tortoise table, and got the proper substrate and lighting, but unfortunately kept the tortoise in bone dry, very dusty conditions. To his defense, the new growth from the past few months actually looks pretty good. Most of the pyramiding happened while the tortoise lived in the tiny aquarium.

You can see the pyramiding in this picture

Redfoot tortoises like to live in a very humid environment, so I've been visiting her outside frequently over the course of the day, misting her thoroughly each time. I also misted the plastic lid I placed over part of the enclosure to seal in some of the moisture. Redfoot tortoises also like to eat a very varied, omnivorous diet. This tortoise gal is going to be weaned off the pellet food she is used to, and will be given good healthy greens, fresh fruit, and appropriate sources of animal protein. None of my other tortoises have ever been fed processed or pre-manufactured foods, so I am not going to start now.

A healthy plastron - yay!

Rescued tortoises often have a really messed up plastron... so I was bracing myself for shell rot and all sorts of other problems. Luckily, her plastron looks great!

As part of in-processing a new tortoise (so I can see progress later), I measured and weighed her. She is 5 3/4" long (14.5cm), and weighs 594g. This is within what is considered a healthy weight range.

...it's a girl!

Speaking of plastrons, you may have noticed that I have been referring to our new redfoot as a 'her' - she is indeed female. Her previous owner thought she was male... we still need to decide on a good name for her. Any suggestions?

Hmmmm. What should we call her... ?

With her white beak, dark eyes and red spots, I think she looks a little bit like a clown. She also has the funniest little smiling clown face in the speckles on the top her head!

See? It's a smiling face!

What do you think we should name her?

Clover flower treats for Jill

Jill, the smallest of my Russian tortoises, got to wander the clover patch today for a little while. Clover is not ideal for tortoises to eat, since it is fairly high in protein, but Jill just LOVES the white clover flowers, so I sometimes let her eat them as a treat. She will walk all about the lawn, chomping away at all the flowers. 

Earlier this year, when it was still too cold to send the tortoises outside, I had to separate Jill from the others because she was being bullied. She had stopped eating, and became withdrawn. My friend offered to babysit her for a few weeks for me. Once separated from the others, she started eating again.

Once the weather got warm enough to move the Russian tortoises to our large 5'x30' outdoor tortoise garden, I set her in there with the others, and she has been fine. She eats well, she explores and walks about, and is growing and gaining weight. Her new growth is healthy and smooth.

I was worried about her this Spring, but now I'm so relieved that she is ok!

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!