It is never excessive to learn about what tortoises do not need and how you can best provide what they need. One of the biggest problems with housing tortoise indoor is offer a home as similar to what they have in natural enviroment as possible.
If you keep your tortoise in a enclosure that is not optimal for them, it can be bad for their overall health and you can end up with an unhealthy animal. Here are some important things to avoid when choosing or seting up the best tortoise enclosure.
#1 Avoid Aquariums
Any glass tank is not suitable to house tortoise. This is because the glass tanks are lack of ventilation, which is very important for the health of the tortoise. It is also not an easy task to create a temperature gradien inside the glass tank, which allow turtoise can regulate their own body temperature as they want.
Not only that, tortoises seem to prefer non-transparent enclosures. They are vulnerable with glass-sided tanks as tortoises don’t understand the concept of glass and they will try and spend a lot of timeto walk through it. This is why aquarium enclosures can actually stress tortoises out.
#2 Limit floor space
It is almost excessive to consider how tall the sides of the enclosure are since the enclosure just need to tall enough to ensure tortoise cannot be able to escape. Instead, it is important to provide an enclosure with plenty of floor space. Tortoise like to wander over very large areas.
The vivarium you end up buying should be sizeable enough for your pets to move around in it.
As a basic rule, a youger tortoise should be kept in 4ft x 8ft enclosure. And if you have an adult pair of tortoises, you are recommeded to give them 10ft x 20ft enclosure.
#3 Avoid direct sunlight
Do not place turtoise enclosure under direct sunlight as this could overheat the enclosure or create massive temperature fluctuations. Instead, the enclosure should be located in a partially shaded area. It is important to keep the enclosure where the temperature will be steady all day long.