Best begginner tortoise?

[Jfitz]

hey guys, been reading a lot of threads about tortoises and turtles here and have really fallen in love with them
just wondering what an easy to keep beginner tortoise would be? also one that doesn't really require like a 500 Gal. set up lol

 

[JoeyCraig3]

i dnt really have personal experience with tortises but they were doing a animal story on larry king and they brought out a russian tortoise which dont get big at all and i believe they said they make good pets

 

[krzr3000]

Probably russian due to size. They are pretty active and interesting...

 

[Gourami Swami]

i would also say your best bet is a russian tortoise. I wouldnt house one in anything less than a 75g terrarium, and that is absolte minimum. It would be better off in a large rubbermaid tub, maybe a couple hundred gallons or so. you can find tons of info about them on the web

 

[coura]

First of you must live with the fact that most toises including the easiest ones to keep have the need of very large acomodacions and also many need outdoor habitats, russians are one of them ,for this guys a indoor terrarium is only good as a grow zone for babys and for quarentine, THEY NEED a outdoor space otherwise to live a confortable and stress free life. And they hibernate every winter wich can be tricky. Other good toises are greeks, hermans and marginateds and they all need thouse same condicions. Sulcatas, leopards, red foots, yellow foots, etc, also like the outdoors but need a huge indoor space for winter. There are much smaller species but the bad thing here is that they still need a large space indoors and most smaller tortoises (hingebacks, planicaudas, spider toises, cape toises,etc) are both very expensive and very hard to keep healty long turn in captivity. They are expecialized animals that evolved in harsh evoirements and dont make good pets for the average joe. Only in the last years we see very experienced people here and there keeping and breeding sucssesfully the smaller toise species. As for you if your willing to invest a large space indoors and outdoors, most of the other species are good investiments. Make shure you do your reserch and buy only captive bred ones

 

[spaulding]

deninatly russian for smaller beginner. just read up a bit on them.

 

[Colubrids&Boids]

russian tortoise just build them a big shallow box like 4'x4'x2'.Ive seen people keep them in kiddie pools.

 

[coura]

russian tortoise just build them a big shallow box like 4'x4'x2'.Ive seen people keep them in kiddie pools.

Just because people keep them in there doesant mean they should surviving is very diferent from triving This now is a tortoise habitat

 

[kafiltafiisch]

Just because people keep them in there doesant mean they should surviving is very diferent from triving This now is a tortoise habitat

im totally builind something like that for my tort this spring!

 

[ceeej31]

Just because people keep them in there doesant mean they should surviving is very diferent from triving This now is a tortoise habitat

hopefully i will be able to build something half as nice as that, the torts are nice too