Caring for a Hermann Tortoise
February 10th 2010 14:44
Hermann's Tortoises originate from Tugoslavia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, Romania, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, and the southern Italy region. This species is about 5" to 10" as an adult, and is native to Mediterranean oak forest areas, arid, rocky hillslopes with scrubby vegetation, which is fairly easy to achieve in captivity.
Tortoises require a little bit of work, and they're not all considered good beginner pets, but you'll find that the Hermann's Tortoise isn't a very complicated tortoise, and would be a good beginner reptile.
You want to make sure that you have a decent sized indoor enclosure for bad weather. A 50 gallon plastic storage tote is going to be bare minimum, but it's always best to have as big as you can go, which means if you can find bigger and have room for bigger, do it! If you can make bigger, do it! The tortoise will appreciate it. It's also good to have an outside tortoise enclosure as well, but that's a whole different ball game to figure out sometimes.
But, when housing your tortoise inside, you want to achieve proper enclosure requirements.
Day Temperature: 70-90F
Basking Temperature: 90-95F
Night Temperature: As low as 60-65F
Humidity: 30-50%
If you house your Hermann Tortoise outside, keep in mind that you want to provide a secure enclosure because this species can be quite active and will escape if the pen is not big enough and if the tortoise is bored, for lack of better words. You want to make sure that the outdoor pen walls are at least 6 inches below the ground's surface and that the walls are high with an interior lip at the top of the wall to discourage climbing.
For hatchlings and indoor enclosures, you want to fill the habitat with soil, orchid bark, and play sand at an even ratio. Try to make hills in the dirt and add rocks and wood for the tortoise to climb on, as well. If you have enough room, you may want to grow weeds in a corner of the enclosure (consider sedum, dandelions, wildflowers, grasses, and weeds).
When housing inside, you will need to provide UV lighting. The best way to do this is not by the cheaper UV tubes, but by purchasing the more expensive UV bulbs. No, I'm not trying to get your to by the most expensive thing, because I'm all about budget and saving money myself. I'm telling you that in this case, by spending the extra money up-front, you're saving it in the end because the tubes have to be replaced much more often than the bulbs.
Try to find the T-Rex active bulbs as they provide UV rays and heat. Sometimes, though, especially in cooler months, you may have to add supplemental heating by using the ceramic heat bulbs in addition to the UV/heat bulb/
When feeding a Hermann's tortoise, you'll find that they are grazing tortoises. They like a variety of flowers, leaves, grasses, weeds, and plants. They require a high fiber and calcium diet, and one that is low in protein and fat.
Try to offer dandelion weds, bindweed, opuntia cactus, sedum, plantains (the weed, not the fruit known as plaintain), coreopsis, hibiscus, mulberry leaves, California poppy, mallow, honeysuckle, some vetches, some clovers, bermuda grass, and other wildflowers and weeds can be grown in an outdoor tortoise pen. If you are housing your tortoise inside, you may want to set an area outside where you can grow these weeds and flowers, so that you can pick them fresh for your tortoise
Another thing that you can use to supplement the diet is the Spring Mix pre-packaged lettuce bags that you can buy at the grocery store. It typically contains escarole, romaine, radachio, and red lettuce, as well as spinach on occasion. But, you may want to supplement with kale sparingly, shredded carrots, occasionally pumpkin,and bermuda grass hay,
You want to avoid any other foods such as spinach, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, beans, peas, cauliflower, collard greens, beet greens turnip greens, mustard greens, and fruits.
You should also use a calium with D3 for inside tortoises. Sprinkle the supplement on the food every few feedings in addition to using a cuttlebone in the enclosure (make sure to remove the metal back that some come with).
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