In autumn my tortoises go through a ‘winding down’ process lasting four or five weeks, when they stop eating and hang about looking miserable.Īs temperatures drop in November, they settle down in their insulated box inside their hutch, which I then put in the shed, and finally go into hibernation. Over the summer they need to gain plenty of weight and be completely healthy in order to safely hibernate. The most demanding part of having a tortoise is the hibernation process.
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For a full list of plants to be avoided (as well as information on specialist vets and tortoise care) visit. Few garden plants are fatally toxic to tortoises in very small quantities, but the weed ragwort can kill them, so clear any traces of it from your garden. Tortoises quite like wading in shallow water but they’re not good swimmers and are also very sensitive to cold water temperatures, so if you have a pond, cover it with netting to stop a tortoise tumbling in. It also means she can’t escape: we’re always nervous about losing her as sometimes our garden gate is left open and a tortoise can move surprisingly fast.’Īnother potential danger comes from water.
Now we keep Mojo in a secure run in the garden. We didn’t realise dogs and tortoises don’t mix until we saw our dog “playing” with Mojo by tossing her around the lawn. ‘Mojo was tiny, barely a couple of inches long, and she’s now about 5in. The answer is to have a run with a wire mesh over it, particularly if you own a small tortoise the larger the tortoise, the less vulnerable it is.Įmma Colville, a charity fundraiser and mother-of-four from London, bought a female Horsfield tortoise eight years ago. Foxes have been known to steal small tortoises, which can also seem like juicy prey to birds like magpies. Even the best-behaved dogs may see a tortoise as a toy and can maul it, damaging the shell or injuring its legs. While cats soon get bored with slow-moving tortoises, dogs, foxes and even birds can present a serious danger. They’ll need an outdoor shelter such as a small hutch, for shade in hot weather and warmth on chilly nights. You can buy a run (see panel, right) or construct your own wooden one, making sure the walls are at least twice as high as the length of the tortoise. Equally, they’re perfectly happy left to their own devices when I’m at work during the day.ĭuring hot weather, Amadeus (the larger and more sweet-natured of the two) and Eustace (a bit of a grump) are surprisingly active.Īs my garden is walled there’s no way they can escape, but tortoises are quite skilled at getting under fences or finding gaps in hedges, and unless your garden is totally secure you will have to construct an enclosed run, or risk your tortoise wandering off. Strangely, they seem to enjoy human contact and if I’m in the garden during daylight hours they’ll often plod around by my feet. My two sometimes try to bite each other and can get quite aggressive, although no serious damage is done and they always end the day peaceably side by side in their hutch. In fact two tortoises who live in the same garden will quite often fight, particularly if they’re both males. Tortoises are not particularly social animals, and most tortoise experts think they’re perfectly happy without a mate. At 18cm (7in) long they’re fully grown and summers now wouldn’t be complete without two tortoises tramping around the garden, crawling over small plants and knocking over the occasional pot. My introduction to tortoise-keeping came ten years ago when a friend gave me her two male Mediterranean spur-thighed tortoises, Amadeus and Eustace, who were then in their mid-60s (yes, that’s in human years!). You can expect to pay around £100 for a 5cm (2in) juvenile, and double that for their housing and equipment, but if it’s looked after properly, your tortoise will still be around in three generations’ time. Males can grow to 16cm (6in) in length, while the females may reach 20cm (8in). They love tunnelling, so you’ll need to take extra care to prevent them from escaping.
The Horsfield, also called the Russian tortoise, has a rounded body and is more tolerant of our cold than Mediterranean varieties, but hates damp so requires a well-drained enclosure.
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