The RedFoot Tortoise

Helping educate current and potential owners of Redfoot tortoises on their husbandry, so they can have a healthy, active tortoise and the tortoise can express its normal behavior and live a long, healthy life.

About Me

Connect

twitterfacebookgplusyoutubepinterest

Powered by Genesis

Re-purpose An Old Pen To a new Indoor Redfoot Tortoise Enclosure

October 13, 2015 by Ernie Leave a Comment

New Indoor Redfoot Tortoise Enclosure

Now that we’ve moved to the Dallas metroplex from Minneapolis, we need to create an indoor pen for our sub-adult Redfoot tortoises.

I’m using a 3 foot by 8 foot wood pen I had been using for one of my male Russians, who’s now in with another male and costing nicely, for my small sub-adult Redfoot herd.

First, my wife and I used an old dark brown tarp and fit and cut it to size for the inside of the pen. This will keep moisture levels higher at tortoise level, which is important for Redfoot’s since they’re tropical forest animals. We’ve used duct tape to adhere it to the top of the pen.

For the substrate I’ve used my combo of choice, a 50/50 mix pf topsoil and expanded, damp coconut fiber. This we top with 1-2 inches of finely milled cypress mulch.

The beauty of this substrate is it retains moisture very well, but with the cypress mulch topping keeps the tortoises from getting any level of shell rot on their plastron’s if the topsoil/coconut fiber gets too wet from my adding water to it.

I use a 3-4 inch depth of substrate because over time it compacts down to 2=3 inches even with my added weekly water.

Next we add plastic plants to one third of the pen to give them places to hide and simulate the forest floor where at this age they spend 100% of their time. To the next third we add the heat emitter and light to provide constant heat and dim light to simulate the light inside a tropical forest.

A 100 watt heat emitter keeps the pen at a 70-85 degree temperature gradient across the pen. The light I’m using is a 13 watt UVB bulb. It’s the only bulb I had at home and I wanted as low a wattage as possible because I don’t want a bulb to produce heat.

UVB bulbs aren’t required for Redfoot’s as long as you feed them a small amount of animal protein (low fat cat food for example) mixed with a liberal amount of pure calcium carbonate every 10 days or so.

I’m using Plexiglas we brought with us to Texas to cover the pen top in order to hold in the heat and moisture. It’s not the best looking setup, but it works for now. 🙂

We mist down the pen every other day to ensure the humidity stays at 60-80%.

So there you have it, a way to re-purpose a pen used for an arid species to one for a forest species.

If you're new here, subscribe to my YouTube Channel for more detailed information. Thanks for visiting!

Filed Under: Redfoot Care Tagged With: Redfoot Tortoise, Redfoot Tortoise indoor enclosure, Redfoot Tortoise indoor pen

A Cheap, Easy Outdoor Redfoot Tortoise Pen

July 20, 2015 by Ernie 1 Comment

A Cheap, Easy Outdoor Redfoot Tortoise Pen

If setting up a short-term outdoor pen for your Redfoot Tortoises is a problem, here’s another quick idea for you.

It’s a plastic baby pool anyone over the age of 40 will remember from childhood. Anyway, it’s nice a round and easy to fill with my substrate, the 50/50 topsoil, coconut fiber mix, and covered with an inch or two of cypress mulch.

There’s some moss, a hide, and plastic plant so your Redfoot’s can dig in and hide when they get too warm or to feel safe.

I have it temporarily covered with our old puppy fence, but a mosquito or bird netting will work much better and a small role of either one is cheap. You want to make sure no predator can get in while your Redfoot tortoises are outside.

This isn’t meant to be one they can live in outside 24/7 it isn’t secure enough, but more of a 4-6 hour time outside.

You can put this setup together for $35-40 total cost, so if you’re looking for a quick and easy outdoor pen for your Redfoot Tortoises, here’s another idea to consider.

Filed Under: Redfoot Care Tagged With: Outdoor Redfoot Tortoise pen, Redfoot Tortoise pen

Redfoot Tortoises and Marrow Bones

July 15, 2015 by Ernie Leave a Comment

Redfoot Tortoises and Marrow Bones

Here’s another tip for your Redfoot tortoise on keeping their beaks trimmed. We always feed our Redfoot tortoises on slates, the ones you can find at a Lowe’s or Home Depot for a buck or two for a 12 inch by 12 inch one.

Get one with a rough side to put the food on and as your Redfoot tortoise goes after the food items they hit up against the slate and it slowly files down their beak and keeps it from getting overgrown.

Redfoot tortoises and marrow bones. We have three dogs and feed them a raw diet, so they get fresh marrow bones a couple of times a week. Once they have reached the point of only having meat remnants left on the bone I take them away from the dogs and put them in our Redfoot tortoise pen.

Redfoot’s, being omnivorous to a small degree, will chew off the small pieces of meat left on the bone and, more importantly, chew the bone itself which like the slate helps to file down their beak.

You want to remove the marrow bone after a day as the smell can get noticeable.

Anyway, just another quick idea you can run with and use as you feel warranted for your Redfoot tortoise.

Filed Under: Redfoot Diet Tagged With: Redfoot Tortoise, Redfoot Tortoise Diet

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • …
  • 15
  • Next Page »

Search the Site

Redfoot Tortoise Information

  • Currently Available Redfoot's
  • Redfoot Breeding
  • Redfoot Care
  • Redfoot Diet
  • Tortoises In The News
  • Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • Available 2018 F2 Redfoot’s
  • Extinct Redfoot Relative Found!
  • Redfoot Tortoises Are Smarter Than You Think
  • Redfoot and Yellowfoot Tortoise Video Care and Husbandry Course
  • Redfoot Tortoise Diet – Cactus Pads