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

Redfoot Tortoises and Marrow Bones

by 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.

Redfoot Tortoise Eggs Incubation

by 3 Comments

Incubating Redfoot tortoise eggs is something you’re going to face as a tortoise keeper at some point.

When this happens there are two steps you need to take in order to end up with healthy hatchlings.

And since I get asked the question and its important now, “how long is the gestation for Redfoot tortoise eggs?”

The answer is, 110-150 days and it varies for each female Redfoot. Over the last 5 years my female has had her eggs hatch like clockwork at between 108-115 days.

When you have your Redfoot tortoise laying eggs you have 6-10 hours to dig them up before you reach the point where they need to stay where she put them – and I’ll get to why a little later.

Now, let’s talk about the two steps you need to put in place before digging up the eggs:

1- setting up the incubator
2- the right container and medium for the eggs.

Incubator Set Up and Incubation Temperature

The incubator we’ve used for Redfoot tortoise eggs for many years is the Hovabator. They’re designed for hatching chicken and duck eggs, but works great for tortoise eggs.

First, you’ll need to fill the internal channel with water. Then make sure this stays full the entire time the eggs are incubating. Check the water level every 3-4 days and top off as needed.

Next you’ll want to get a digital thermometer, set it in the incubator and work to get the temperature to a steady 85-86 degrees.

You adjust the lever on the top left of the incubator to increase or decrease the temperature. It typically takes 3-4 hours to get the temp set at a consistent 85-86 degrees.

Egg Medium and Container

One of the keys to successfully incubating Redfoot tortoise eggs is the medium. I’ve used vermiculite for years and it works very well. You could also use damp sphagnum moss for Redfoot tortoise eggs.

For an egg container we use the round plastic ones people use for storing leftovers in the refrigerator. They work great, last for years, and hold in the heat and humidity generated by the incubator very well.

So our the medium into the plastic container about half full, then add warm, but not hot water to fill the medium.

Then hold your hand over a section and let as much water run out as possible, then push down the medium to squeeze out any more water and dump it.

You want a damp medium not wet one because a wet medium will rot the eggs.

Now, form 3-4 areas in the damp medium for the eggs to sit in and put the container in the incubator.

Digging Up Redfoot Tortoise Eggs

This needs to be done ideally within 9 hours of your Redfoot tortoise laying eggs.

Here’s why:

Within 12-24 hours Redfoot tortoise eggs develop small blood vessels that attach to the eggs inside wall. Any moving after that time will tear these blood vessels and destroy the chance for it to develop into an embryonic tortoise.

Okay, back to digging up the eggs.

Since Redfoot’s are curious animals you’ll want to feed them to distract them from coming over to you as you dig up the eggs.

So, go ahead and feed them – I’ll wait. 🙂

Now, locate where she dug out the nest and dig down until you see the white of an eggshell start to pop though the substrate. Redfoot’s drop 3-7 eggs in a clutch, so you’ll want to dig around that egg to locate the other 2-6 next to or below it in the substrate.

Try not to spin the egg and as best as you can keep it in the same position you find it when you place it in the medium in the container.

Put each one you find in the container with the damp medium. Once you’ve located all the eggs and filled one or more containers with eggs, put them in the incubator.

Put the end of the digital thermometer in the medium in the container closest to the heat element inside the incubator. Then watch the temperature over the next hour or so to make sure it’s at between 85 and 86 degrees.

There’s a good chance you’ll need to adjust the heat back and forth for a few hours before it stays in the 85-86 degree range.

At this point all you need to do is count down the days and make sure the temperature stays in that range. Top off the channel with water every few days and wait for new life to appear from this clutch of Redfoot tortoise eggs.

Redfoot Tortoise Pyramiding

by 1 Comment

If you have a captive bred hatchling or purchased a sub-adult Redfoot it’s a virtual certainty it either has or will have some level of  Redfoot Tortoise pyramiding as it ages.

Redfoot Tortoise pyramidingWhy is it wild caught adults have perfectly smooth carapaces?

And why is just about every captive bred Redfoot tortoise within a few years develops a rising carapace called stacking or pyramiding?

There are four factors that explain Redfoot Tortoise pyramiding:

  • Their diet
  • Enclosure humidity level
  • Temperature in the enclosure
  • The enclosure size

Let’s go into each one to understand why they play such a critical role in Redfoot tortoise pyramiding.

Redfoot Tortoise Pyramiding and Diet

Redfoot tortoises and their close relative the Yellowfoot tortoise share one important characteristic – they both spend the majority of their lives in dense tropical forests.

So much so, the Yellowfoot can spend it’s entire lifetime never seeing an open area such as a savannah.

Understanding this important characteristic of both tortoises helps to explain why they both need a 60% fruit, 30-35% greens, 5-10% animal protein diet in order to thrive in captivity.

Here’s my overview of their Redfoot tortoise diet requirements.

Edible greens, high in calcium, simply do not exist in the tropical forest Redfoot habitats of southern Central America and Northern South America because there is no significant geological limestone under-lament to support high calcium plant life.

So, if you feed your Redfoot tortoise a diet designed for a Russian, Greek or Hermann’s, you’re scaling up this factor that causes Redfoot Tortoise pyramiding.

The calcium and protein needs of your Redfoot tortoise are met in the wild through carrion, bugs, mushrooms, and mammal feces – all common items in a tropical forest. Carrion contains Vitamin D3, which all tortoises need for calcium synthesis, and many mushroom varieties contain Vitamin D2, which they can convert to D3 for calcium synthesis.

So, having a 60% fruit and 5-10% animal protein mix for their diet follows their wild diet as much as is possible. If you’re currently feeding them a 70-80% green’s diet, it’s time to make the change for your Redfoot’s health and smoother carapace.

Humidity and Redfoot Tortoises

Anyone who has ever visited southern Florida or any of the Hawaiian islands (Kauai and the Eastern side of the Big Island in particular) can feel the high level of humidity. These two areas of the United States are the closest to the native humidity levels your Redfoot tortoise would experience on a day to day basis in its natural habitat.

Humidity or lack thereof is the second important factor in pyramiding. Your Redfoot tortoise, no matter how far removed it might be from its wild caught ancestors, can’t overcome it’s biological design for a high humidity environment.

If you’re unable to maintain a consistent 60-90% humidity (75-90% is best) for both an indoor and outdoor enclosure you’re significantly contributing to a future pyramiding issue for your Redfoot tortoise.

Redfoot’s, and all forest tortoise species, don’t have the long captive history of Greek’s dating back to the 1960’s and 1970’s, so most tortoise enthusiasts haven’t caught up to their very different husbandry requirements.

If you’re still researching tortoises and the need to maintain that level of humidity is going to be hard, skip getting a Redfoot or any forest species.

Consistent Temperatures and the Redfoot Tortoise

In the dense tropical forests wild Redfoot tortoises live in there are only two seasons – wet and dry. The temperature range in their native habitats will go from 65-70 on cold days in the dry season, to 85-90 during the wet season.

What that means for you is a range of 70-90 year round for both indoor and outdoor pens.

83-88 seems to be the sweet spot for daytime temps and 70-75 for nighttime temps for my Redfoots.

This requirement isn’t hard to meet regardless of where you live, but it’s still factor number three when it comes to Redfoot Tortoise pyramiding.

So, in order to reduce the probability of Redfoot Tortoise pyramiding we need a diet that closely matches the percentages of what they eat in the wild, a high humidity level year round, and a consistent 70-90 degree temperature year round.

Okay, what’s left?

Enclosure Size and Redfoot Tortoises

If there’s one thing all tortoises do, it’s move around – a lot. Your Redfoot tortoise is not a coach potato, it’s designed to walk around and do a lot of it. They rest when they’ve had enough to eat and when they need to sleep.

The opportunity for your Redfoot tortoise to walk around a spacious enclosure, whether indoor or outdoor, is the final piece of the Redfoot Tortoise pyramiding puzzle.

Without going into a long, anatomical explanation as to how, I’ll just say that walking around is critical to having the synthesized calcium being implanted in their arm, leg, and associated bones used for locomotion vs. their carapace.

I’ve written enough about the size and type of enclosures they need and you can find these articles on this blog or on my YouTube channel.

That being said, the larger, more well planted an enclosure is a must so your Redfoot tortoise can move around for 6+ hours a day and explore their habitat.

Here’s a post on Redfoot tortoise enclosures.

In closing, get their diet, humidity, temperature, and enclosure size correct because these four items influence Redfoot tortoise pyramiding.