good size?

[Bartman]

I have a russian tortoise and fornow the cage hes in is more then enough but will he be able to live his whole life in this cage?
its measurs 3 feet long by a foot wide and a foot and a half high
thx in advance

[Bartman]

and if he cant how long can he live here for? how big will he be when he needs an upgrade

[gfisher2002]

How big is he now? How old? The height of the enclosure doesn't really matter. But 3' by 1' is good for a hatchling. A sub adult russian should have at least a 3X2 enclosure in my opinion. My little girl has a 4X2 foot enclosure. It should last most if not all of her life. The walls are plywood back and sides and plexiglass on the front. They're only 10 inches high. She has never completed an escape attempt. Like all animals, the bigger, the better.

[Bartman]

she is 5 inches long

[gfisher2002]

3 feet is long enough for her but 1 foot wide is kind of skinny. Eventually it will have to be wider for sure. But for now it should be ok. It might get a little mind numbing for her to always be walking back and forth and not free roaming like in a wider enclosure. Could you add more to the width or no? I'd recommend something more like 3X2 minimum for now or even 4X3 would be more perminant. Adult females can grow to 8 - 10" CL so a 12" wide enclosure definately won't cut it. Don't worry so much about the height though, as long as they can't crawl over it, the ground area is what's important. They like to roam.

[Bartman]

I let her roam around almost everysingle day around my room
I will later on build something better..maybe in 1 or 2 months...Do you think its good i let her roam?

[eyespy]

Unless you've got UVB lighting all over your room it might be tough for your tort to get enough vitamin D doing a lot of wandering. They don't seem to process dietary supplements well at all, probably because they don't naturally eat foods that contain vitamin D.

[Bartman]

i take it out for an hour or two and then she walks around my tank the rest of the time...imo she gets enough uvb

[eyespy]

If she only gets out for an hour or two a day she definitely would benefit from a larger enclosure. Wild torts rumble around most of their waking hours, so captive ones need a lot of room or they don't get enough exercise and risk obesity-related disease.

[Bartman]

ok so im gonna start thinking about building a cage..thanks!
just a question..how do tortoises get obese, dont they have a shell size no matter what causs they dont have a stomach really that can get big...un confuse me :)

[eyespy]

Obesity in reptiles is more related to how much fat accumulates near or in the internal organs. No matter how much the shell limits growth, the organs can continue to become fattier and fattier until they eventually stop functioning. That's the leading cause of death for captive reptiles, torts included.

[gfisher2002]

You can even notice it on most turtles and tort by the bulging skin at the legs and neck area.

[Bartman]

ok thank you very much!