Russian Tortoise Care – How To Get Their Pens and Diet Right

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Russian Tortoise Care – How To Get Their Pens and Diet Right

When it comes to Russian Tortoise care whether you currently own one or are considering getting one, understanding the topography and geology of their native environment are two pieces of their care you must understand.

Why you ask?

Because they are your guide how to set up their pens and what you should feed them.

Doesn't get more important than that does it.

Here's our visual of the 4 levels of successful tortoise husbandry and as you can see, the foundation or Level 1 is the topography and geology.

Okay, so what do we mean by Topography?

Topography is simply the arrangement of the natural and artificial physical features of an area. Think trees, plants, rocks, etc.

The geology is understanding the geologic characteristics of the area they come from, meaning the composition of the substrate and what minerals make up what's called the underlayment.

Things like limestone, etc.

Now, hang in there with me because this is all going to make sense and you'll be saying, “Ah, I get it” at the end of the video.

Now it's time to go into a little detail on the topography and the geology because we need to start at the foundation level.

Just like a house, in order to support the pen and diet needs (just like the floors and walls of a house,) to make sure the structure is sound and can support everything built on it lasts for many years.

And the metaphorical structure for us, is a healthy, long lived Tortoise.

So, level 1 can be broken down into two simple principles:

The Topography drives the Tortoise enclosure requirements
The Geology drives the Tortoise diet requirements

First, let’s dive into how the topography drives their enclosure or pen requirements.

If the topography where they live in the wild looks like this, you obviously want an open pen with lots of sunlight and a few places for them to hide.

But how do you set it up if their environment looks like this?

Big difference and a very important one for you and your tortoise.

How to set up their indoor and outdoor pens the right way I go over in detail in my comprehensive video courses on the Russian Tortoise, but at this point, you get the idea.

As you can see getting the pen setup to mimic their native topography is step one to having a healthy tortoise.

The “don't make an Eskimo live in Florida” principle.

Now, let's see how the geologic features of their region drives the tortoise's diet and use the part of the world where Greek's, Hermann's, Marginated, and Russian tortoises live.

They all come from the area know as the Mediterranean basin.

From a geologic perspective the Mediterranean basin is simply one large; continuous, close to the surface limestone bed and the principal component of limestone is calcium.

This means all of the surface vegetation these tortoises eat is high in calcium, the most important mineral of their diet.

And if we switch back to the topography for one quick second we also know this area is hot much of the year with moderate to low rainfall and that means the surface vegetation needs to be very hardy.

That results in the vegetation having thick, fibrous leaves in order to stand up to the sunshine, heat, and lower rainfall.

Okay, here's the I get it moment.

If we have a Greek, Hermann's or Russian tortoise we now know we need a pen that's open with lots of sunlight and a few places to hide based on the Topography.

And we should feed them greens high in fiber based on the Geology. It also means there's a whole list of items they should not be fed that cause them all kinds of health problems.

You can discover what those bad items are and why they're bad in my course.

Okay, you now have a basic understanding of why having a good understanding of the Topography and Geology of a tortoises native environment has on your Russian tortoises health.

Now, if you’re interested in more about how to setup their indoor and outdoor pens the right way and the right diet for your Russian Tortoise, you can in the comprehensive video course about them I've put together to help you get these and others features of Russian Tortoise care right.


It'll answer any question you have about Russian tortoise care - based on my 16+ years working with them - and you'll learn things about them and their care 90% of current Russian tortoise owners wish they knew.