Hey guys, so in today's video we're going to talk about how to take care of a pet
Red Foot Tortoise. So the Red Foot Tortoise comes from the tropics of South
America, and it can get up to between 10 to 16 inches long, but these guys also
live to be about, they can live up to like 50 years or even more so they're a
pet that you're gonna have for a long time. As far as tank size goes these
young ones they'll need a tank size about 36 x 18 x 16 which is our 40
gallon breeder, that would be the minimum size for a young one like this one. For
adults you actually need, usually they're custom built, an actual enclosure that's
actually 6 foot by 3 foot deep. They will definitely need a big
enclosure when they reach adult size, closer to that 10 to 16 inches point. So you
can see here that we have our adult Red Foots in a custom-built pen inside of
our store. So yeah, definitely once they get big they will need probably custom
built enclosure. So as far as their substrate goes, because these guys come
from a tropical habitat they need a humid environment, so they will need
substrate that is pretty absorbent and holds a lot of moisture, so you'll want
something like peat moss, coconut fiber, or even tropic mix, tropical mix that we
sell here at Tye-Dyed Iguana. So those are all good substrates to use. Now one thing
that you'll need in their tank is a water dish that's deep enough for it to
be able to climb in and fit its whole body in to soak. These guys they like to
soak in the water so it needs to be big enough where you can kind of fill it, so
they can reach up to one thirds the way up their shell, so. And you also got to
make sure that they can enter and exit it easily you don't want them
it's stuck in there. As far as their temperature goes, these guys need a
ambient temperature of between 75 to 80 degrees, and then they'll also need a hot
spot where they can bask from 90 to 95 degrees. Because these guys are diurnal
species you will need a separate bulb for their UVB, so you will need, so you'll
end up with either two bulbs, the UVB and the heat bulb, or you can use a mercury
vapour bulb that has both heat and UVB, so that's kind of cool too.
Yes. So as far as your diet goes these guys will eat vegetables, and fruit, and
some types of protein. As far as their vegetables go you can feed them dark
leafy greens like leafy turnip greens, you can also feed collard greens
or mustard greens. As far as fruit goes you don't want to feed too much fruit,
because then they can get mouth rot, so just occasional snack. So fruit, yes. As
far as sources of protein for these guys they can eat mealworms, earthworms,
crickets, but just make sure to give them in small amounts because that's not the
major part of their diet, major part of their diet will be the greens. And one
important thing to remember for the greens, never give these guys lettuce it
has no nutritional value whatsoever, all it has is water and cellulose and that
is it. It will not give them any type of nutrition. Stick with the dark leafy
greens. So these guys, they will get calcium dusted on their greens whenever
you do feed them, and you should also make sure that their food gets dusted
with vitamins about once a week. So that time make sure they get the vitamins
they need without overdoing it. So their daily care is pretty easy, what we do
here at the store is we take their water dish out, we dump out the old water, we
also rinse the dish and scrub it down with a little sponge or something to get
all that stuff, that little algae that grows on the bottom of the
dish off, and then we just put it back in their tank and give them fresh water. And
other than that, we just scoop the poop daily, check for poop. So another thing we
do daily is we spray the substrate down with water, and that keeps it nice and
hydrated all day for them. And other than that all you gotta do is give them fresh
greens, take out old food and stuff and yeah, that's basically it. So one of the
best things about the Red Foot Tortoise we notice, that they have a awesome
personality. They love to interact with people usually, and they're usually very
curious, and they love being pet and they'll always be out of the shell,
they're not ones that usually hide in the shell all the time, so they're
definitely a great pet to get.