Anyone working with russians?

[homebrewed]

I've been told these are a good starter tortoise and have started researching them recently.
I was just wondering if anyone is working with them and if they were if they could provide some extra tips ontop of care and housing etc.
Also, if anyone knows a breeder, or someone I can keep in contact with when the time arises and I'm ready to get into working with these animals.

Tim

[Bartman]

Im dying to find an adult male to breed to my female.

A tip id give you is for substrate, as when I was doing research couldnt find anything on it. The best thing to use is a mix of ecoearth/coconut fibre with sand.

They are great tortoises. Good luck.

EDIT:

Heres my set up btw.
a 4x2x2..hay on the left side for her to burrow and all thats cut off on the right side is a hide made from cork bark. I tried to get the uv light as low as possible so it actually does something, since it has to be like 8 inches from the animal to be effective.

There is also a lot more sand then what it looks, but a thin layer of the eco earth over the sand, so it looks like only that. I need to just mix that up more :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/BartmanReptiles/tortsetup.jpg

[snakers55]

Bartman's setup looks good, but a few suggestions I would make is to make the substrate deeper, as Bartman said, they are burrowers, and the enclosure should not be fully enclosed, the top should be left open.

[Bartman]

Instead of making the top open, I used mesh across the top. I built it first with just a normal top, but found it was getting to humid. I also have cats, so I couldnt leave it open :)


I wish I could put more substrate, but the substrate barrier is like 3 inches. When I have more time/money ill probably build him something more tortoise based, but for now she seems to be doing fine. Thanks for the suggestion!

[snakers55]

Ah,my mistake,sorry about that.. I'm sure many of us have build enclosures wishing we'd changed something or other lol.. I know I have.

[homebrewed]

Nice

Thanks for the tips :)

[Buddha]

great set up

[SDG]

I have 3.2 russians (4 rescues and one accidental cb male).
I had missed one of the female's eggs in the enclosure and it hatched.
Regardless, these torts love room to run around and rocks to climb. The winter enclosure is 7' X 4', with a 5.0 uva/uvb tube, and a dozen or more rocks of various sizes to climb.
Be warned, if you get a fiesty male, you will not be able to keep him with any others (male or female). My one male has attacked all tortoises near him, tearing off forlimb scales, severly injuring eyes etc. Needless to say, he has been in his own enclosure for years now. The other males aren't too bad.