r/Tortoises

We have a hermann's tortoise that we need to rehome since my mom can't take care of him anymore and we're looking for an organization to surrender it to. We were supposed to surrender him to a sanctuary in California but they had some setbacks and can't take him anymore.

He's about 6-7 years old, probably weighs around 5lbs and is a very loving tortoise. We live in New Jesey and already have a shipping box from redlineshipping.

As much as we want to keep him, he deserves to have a better quality of life. We prefer a sactuary that have an outdoor space big enough so he can roam around and dig as he want. Any recommendations is appreciated!

We brought our baby tortoise in to an “exotic vet” for a cloacal prolapse. They were the only one within 6 hours of us and I had tried seeing them 3 times but was turned away because their exotic specialist was out.

Upon arrival, they had us pay an insane exotic specialist fee. After they finally took our tortoise, they had me sign a consent form saying I understood the exotic vet doesn’t hold any special exotic certifications — oh, and told me I should have come in sooner. They didn’t explain the procedure to me until after it was done, and didn’t let me see him until I paid.

Once I got him back I said “oh wow you got it fixed that cleanly!”. Come to find out they cut his intestines completely off, knowing he wouldn’t make it but wanted to run me for my money first.

I paid about triple what euthanasia would have cost and he died about 6 hours later.

Will never trust another “exotic” vet again.

For the first two years I kept my Hermann's, Greta, entirely indoors under a T5 UVB tube and a halogen basking bulb. She ate, she moved around, she seemed fine. But she was always a bit sluggish in the mornings and her shell, while not pyramided, just looked a little dull. I kept reading that outdoor time was better but I lived in a flat with no garden, so I told myself the setup was adequate and moved on.

Then I moved to a house with a small patio and built a basic outdoor pen. Nothing fancy, just treated sleepers for the walls, buried wire mesh underneath to stop digging escapes, some Mediterranean plants, a few slate pieces for basking and a wooden hide in one corner. The change in Greta within about two weeks was noticeable enough that I felt genuinely embarrassed about the previous two years.

The biggest thing was her activity level in the mornings. Outside she was out of the hide and basking within thirty minutes of sunrise on warm days. Indoors she would sometimes take two hours before she seemed properly alert. The other thing was her appetite. She started eating much more confidently and stopped leaving bits of food untouched, which had been a minor ongoing puzzle for me.

A few things I learned along the way that might help anyone considering the switch:

• Overnight temperatures matter more than I expected. Anything below about 10 degrees Celsius and she stayed in the hide all day even if the afternoon warmed up nicely. I built a small frost-cloth cover for the hide and that helped on borderline nights.
• Weeds are genuinely better than shop-bought greens for daily grazing. Plantain, dandelion, clover. She ignores the dandelion flowers but eats the leaves constantly.
• Predator proofing from above took me longer to take seriously than it should have. A secure wire lid is not optional if there are crows or magpies in your area.

She hibernated successfully for the first time last autumn as well, which I had been too nervous to attempt when she was kept indoors year-round. That whole process deserves its own post honestly, but getting her outside and letting her build up naturally through a proper seasonal cycle seemed to make the weight gain before hibernation much more straightforward than I anticipated.

How do people in northern climates brumate their tortoises? I just got my tortoise in December and he is about 96g currently.

I live in Northern Alberta. Winters here are exceptionally brutal, we can get to -40°C for a week at a time and roughly 6 feet of snow. I do have unheated sheds, but I assume -40°C weather would definitely kill him.