Russian Tortoise Care: From a Wise Owner

Russian Tortoises are commonly wild caught but adapt quickly to captive life. While the first day is simple the rest can be pure horror without the correct care. First off, we will talk about picking your Tortoise out.

1. Picking out your Tortoise

 Look for Tortoise who has a nice hard shell, some stores plan on selling them so fast that they don’t invest in a UV lamp. Look in the Face area, there should be no fluid dripping from the nose and it should have clear black eyes. Look  at the limbs, if you see any bluish muscle that is usually from another tortoise trying to mate with it, or territorial fights.

2. How to tell the gender

A girl Russian Tortoise will have a short stubby tail that hangs down towards the ground, while the male with have a longer barbed tail that is usually tucked to the side.

3. Habitat

The most efficient cage is a large wooden box called a ” Tortoise Table”. A Tortoise Table is  a custom wooden box the size of your Russian Tortoise. Let’s say your tortoise is 5 inches long and 3 1/2 inches wide, that means your must make a 5 ft by 3 1/2 ft pen. Making a smaller cage with 1 tortoise will make it stressed, and stress can kill a tortoise. With 2 tortoises ,boys Girls or mixed, they will fight for territory. In some serious cases the tortoises even resort to cannibalism.

4. Objects in Tortoise Pen

I put a decent amount of Timothy hay for munching on and burrowing inside of. Put covered objects like a hollowed half-log, or even a shoe box! I also put small sticks and rocks to climb on. Be sure to not stack too many rocks on-topof each other or the tortoise could fall on its back ( and it wont’t be ablt to breathe)

5. Special Needs

Lighting- a UV light ( UV lights give off rays that are similar to those of the sun ) in a long lamp like those in  fluorescent lighting, but be sure you get a UV light! Also the tortoise will need a heat lamp, a bulb that gives off heat that should be 1 ft from your tortoise. The Temp on the ground from the heat lamp should be around 90 degrees F. 

• Dust- At your local pet store ask about Calcium Dust. It is calcium that you sprinkle on the tortoises food to provide ( what else ) Calcium!
  A Russian tortoise uses fiber as energy and cannot digest meat or non-greens well.
• Diet-  Leafy Weeds and greens ( be sure to avoid iceberg lettuce  an corn ) take them outdoors in the warm weather and just let them graze for clovers , and their favorite, dandelions. Romaine Lettuce is a good food and is used often. At you local supermarket, I would recommend getting Spring Mix. It combines healthy lettuce ( avoid iceberg ) and I use about 2 or 3 bags a month. To be completely natural I just leave them outside for a good 20m minutes  then give them a small amount of lettuce.

Russian tortoises are intenally designed to eat alot  in short peroids so i would provide a large ammount of lettice for 20 minutes per day or a VERY large ammount of lettuce and leave for 1 hour every other day.