Bathing

Although tortoises will drink little water when fed a mixed moist diet, there should always be fresh drinking water available daily. Tortoises require a shallow warm bath approximately 3-4 times a week and daily throughout the warmer months. On purchasing a tortoise, we recommend that you bath them every day for the first week or two to discourage any stress and encourage active behaviour within the new environment.

The benefits of this are to help aid digestion, waste management and to ensure they are fully hydrated. Use a plastic tub or tray with enough luke warm water to allow your tortoise to place its head under the water but not too deep that it cannot lift its head above the water. A soft toothbrush or cotton wool ball can be used to gently clean the shell if required. Tortoises will drink by submerging both their mouth and nose or even their whole head and neck!. Ensure you check the temperature of the water before placing your tortoise in the bathing tub.

Allow approximately 10 – 15 minutes soak in the bath, this should be enough time to ensure your tortoise is fully hydrated and that the water doesn’t get cold. Your tortoise may empty its bowels in the bath or water bowl which is normal as they also absorb water through the vent in their tails. Drinking water should be refreshed as soon as possible and the bathing water changed.

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Heating & Lighting

It is essential that your tortoise has a full spectrum light that produces UVB and UVA. UVB allows the tortoise to synthesise vitamin D3 helping to prevent or reverse metabolic bone disease and ensure normal shell growth, promoting long health. UVA increases feeding, mating and other natural behaviours. These are all fundamental to the normal development and health of basking reptiles such as tortoises.

You can use an ultraviolet strip light and a separate basking bulb or a combined mercury vapour basking lamp, we use the D3 basking lamp by Arcadia which provides both heat and UVA/UVB. Both the heat and UV (or single combination bulb) should be switched on for approximately 10-12 hours each day, this can be plugged into a timer and set appropriately. When your tortoise spends time outside during spring and summer, the sun provides the natural ultraviolet light required.

For Mediterranean and Russian tortoises, ensure that one end of the tortoise housing is heated to around 27-34°c and the other end is cooler at around 17-22°c allowing your tortoise to choose its preferred temperature. Basking lamps should be kept at least 6 inches above the basking area, we recommend around 10 inches. The night time temperature may drop to around 14-17°c, this is fine as it would naturally do this in an outdoor environment. For non-hibernating tortoises, please see individual care sheets.

Please always follow the manufacturers instructions and guidelines on the installation and lifetime guarantee of any lighting unit/bulb you are using. We recommend using a trusted, qualified electrician/tradesman where required.

Housing, furnishing & substrates

If you are housing your tortoise inside, we recommend that you use an open top type enclosure like a tortoise table and not a closed in vivarium as this is harder to regulate the heated and cooler ends of the housing. Humidity should be kept low to moderate as a higher humidity level can cause respiratory issues.

We recommend using a coco coir substrate and use this ourselves. We use a mixture of fine and coarse coco coir and spray it down with warm water daily. Alternatively, you can use a sterilised top soil and play sand mix but ensure this doesn’t become too dry in the heated enclosure and central heated house as this can cause issues with your tortoise’ eyes and respiratory infections, especially on smaller hatchlings. To encourage natural behaviour and provide enrichment you can have several areas of varying substrates for your tortoise to discover.

Shelters can be provided within indoor or outdoor enclosures such as a house, tunnel, shelter, flower pot or moss hide. This will give a natural hiding place for your tortoise to behave as they would naturally and escape the heat or hide from predators.

Outdoor enclosures should be available to your tortoise whenever the weather is suitably warm, the larger the space the better. This enclosure should be secure and escape proof, allow access to the sun and allow for sufficient air flow. All outdoor enclosures must be safe from predators such as foxes and large birds, so a mesh lid is essential for their protection. A variety of plants can be grown within the enclosure to encourage foraging, secured rocks or slate for a shelter and a soil and sand area for digging. Water should always be accessible within the outdoor enclosure.

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Tortoise Care

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