hi i am hoping for some advice i have been doing a lot of research before i purchase my redfoot i am having a table built it is the lighting and heat i could do with some help on
ie is it better to use a uv strip or any other suggestions
the red foot is about a year old so what is best to feed him and what heat, hav`nt picked him up yet going to get all set up first.
any advice would be much appreciated

A light strip is more than enough.

The temperature is the most important thing.

Check out the previous posts on the RF.

Red keepers tend to prefer UVB strips as opposed to the MVB (mercury vapor bulbs..or combined heat uvb) as they don't kick out quite so much uv, which with reds can apparantly harm their eyes if given in particularly strong doses.

I'd recommend PMing blondesarah as she keeps reds and has recently been breeding hers.

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I've been breeding mine... well... I haven't been breeding them... as such... but they've bred for me... I still need to get viable eggs... well... I don't need to get viable eggs... the tortoises need to produce viable eggs for me... you know what I mean...

ed you actually make me chuckle sometimes, now now.

I gave sarah as an example to pm as looking at some of her reds they are stunning and i know shes helped alot of red keepers on here in the past.
She does seem quite knowledgeable on them as well, and i THINK it was sarah who mentioned about eye sensitivity, though I could be wrong, it's late and a looong week.

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Never said she wasn't...

Tell me this is not a relaxing escape for you...

oh... I'm glad.

a relaxing escape? what rfuk? mmm relaxing would be a nice holiday on a sunny beach somewhere, however keeping animals kinda puts a dampener on that, especially when 90% of our friends and family are petrified of the animals we keep.Trying to get them to come around, thought this pic might help but apparantly it looks 'vicious' oh yeh...terrifying



to the OP the following links may be worth having a read of..

Red-foot Tortoise Care - Darrell Senneke and Chris Tabaka DVM
Redfooted Tortoise Caresheet

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Darrell is the voice of reason... I agree with him to an extent... Chris... brilliant... but extreme tunnel vision... he's right and he knows it... not the kind of DVM I'd like to use... When Darrell leaves the WCT... I believe it will collaps.

Did you know that the WCT was originally the TTUSA... another interesting piece of history...

hi thanks for the advice i am new to this i have never joined a forum but i was searching for information and all the sites differ a bit so i thought i would just go for it and ask i will be checking out the links,let you know how i get on

Thank you katie

Ed is right temperature is very important. I keep mine at 27c in cool spots and 32+ in warm. From MY OWN obervations if the cool spots are too cool the tortoise seem to spend all there time under the basking lights.

Food: i feed mine 70% greens (weeds) 40% fuit no citrus fruits like oranges, but fruit like mellons, pears, plums, papya, mango.
In the summer to do give my lot more weeds as there are more about.

Once a week i also give them dehydrated cat biscuits, for a one year old give them one biscuit, i offen see people giving there tortoises too much.

Substrate for young tortoises: a good layer of top soil and sand 60/40 and then repti bark on top.
I make sure the soil and sand is moist, the reti bark will dry out but as long as the soil is moist thats fine as it still provides humdity.
Spray the substrate and your tortoises twise a day.
To measure humdity you need a hygrometer powered by a hair none of those cheap plastic ones they are rubbish.
Always provide a good water bowl as reds love to drink.

I hope that helps

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