Hello there.

[Terri]

My name is Terri and I am new to this brilliant site. After a lot of research I am now the proud but nervous owner of Usain, my beautiful Hermann torty. As a child growing up in the 60's, we had tortoises as family pets. Dora lived out in the garden all her life, we fed her bananas, tomatoes, cucumber, didn't have any idea what breed of tortoise she was, she would dig a pit and hibernate every winter and every spring she would reappear. She laid several clutches of eggs and grew to be a big girl. We bought her from a pet shop for the princely sum of 7/6, less than 50p in today's money ! Dora lived well into her 50's.
How things have changed ! Usain has a beautiful new tortoise table, heat, light, water, a bedroom and staff..me...to attend to his every need ! He has been out in the garden on sunny afternoons this week where he charges around, much to the bantams surprise, and follows me around like a shadow. He is such a character and I am totally besotted by him. I have plans for a large outdoor enclosure next spring but for now he lives indoors. He currently weighs 250g and the advice when I bought him was not to let him hibernate this year but he seems to spend longer periods in his little bedroom asleep. I bring him out and put him under his light every morning...should I be doing this or am I stressing him ? He was on dry wood chip substrate but I have changed that to a mix of soft sand and top soil with a pebbles area too. Should I be bathing him each day or misting his living quarters...I'm afraid of him becoming too dry. Any advice would be great. I have been on several sites researching but found so much conflicting advice I'm now not sure what to do. This site is definitely the best one for good common sense advice from true torty lovers and owners and I look forward to being part of it. I hope I haven't come across as a complete numbskull but I really want to do what's best for Usain