My Method

[tortoiseolly]

I read a lot about how people keep their tortoises, I'm not a massive poster on this forum but am always in the background reading, but i thought i would share with you all how i keep mine.
I'm sure there will be people who agree and disagree with the way i do things, but just wanna show how i do it, gives new tortoise owners a different option.
i am in no way a tortoise expert and don't pretend to be just an enthusiast.

i have 7 tortoises which consists of 5 different species, these are Hermann, 2 x med spur thigh, leopard, horsfield and 2 x stars.

All my tortoises are kept inside, i do have some outside runs, but in this country they don't tend to get out much, but weather permitting they will spend some time supervised outside.

When kept inside all are on tortoise table and i do not use UV lighting just a basking light and supplement calcium and nutrobal. All my tortoises are active using this method.

When it comes to feeding all my tortoises are fed the same diet not matter what species and for me this has worked, all tortoises are gaining weight very nicely. Pellets for me (pretty pets) are the staple diet and i use weeds to supplement their diet rather then visa versa. I believe i can't supply enough variety in weeds to give them everything they need in their diet . Just use the weeds or supermarket greens (romaine lettuce, curly kale, grasses, plantain) to bulk out their diet and help keep beaks trim as the pellets are fed wet not much of a work out for their beak... i've never had to trim a beak yet.

i suppose the truth is in the growth so here are some pics and weight gains and how long i have owned the tortoise.

leopard had 4yrs - 300g-808g


med spur thigh 3yrs - 43g-234g


horsfield 3yrs- stayed same weight really 277g-303g


stars 2yrs - 1st 34g-94g 2nd 32g-86g


recently got a 10 yr old hermann who came with a long beak, 40 yr old med spur thigh but not had these long enough to show much from their weight gains but here are some pics anyway




thanks for listening
Olly

[Baoh]

I have raised a number of Testudo species similarly to how you describe before I bought my own property. It was a little cramped, but every animal still thrived and they went on to become excellent breeder stock.