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The red-footed tortoise is a species that we find in South America. They
love a warm and humid environment, and are found around the Amazon River
Basin.
We actually have a young red-footed tortoise here with us today. This one
is quite small. This is a tortoise again, that when you purchase at this
age can be housed fairly easily indoors in a basic fish tank or other
custom enclosure, but they can actually grow to be quite large. They can
achieve a shell size of up to 18 inches, so again this is a long width
tortoise. It's one that you need to have space for.
Their diet requirements are a little different than some of the other land
tortoises we see commonly in the pet trade. They do eat a lot more fruit,
so they can be fed on leafy greens, grasses, and fruit with a small amount
of protein in their diet.
Their basking temperature should be pretty warm, again over 90 degrees, and
not getting down much below 70 - 75 at night/ Again, because they're from a
very humid tropical environment, we also want to maintain a high humidity
of 80 or more percent in their enclosure. This can be tricky when we're
keeping them here in North America. It requires frequent misting of the
enclosure either by hand, or with a mechanical mister including things like
large dishes of water that the tortoise can climb into, helps to keep the
humidity up as well as moist substrates and live plants.