What Enclosure, Setup and Equipment do I need?
It can be daunting to know where to start to get the right housing and equipment for your new baby tortoise, but look no further as we have all the information here to help you.
Starter packs for your tortoise
To make things super easy for you, we have put together a comprehensive starter pack for each breed of tortoise we sell: Leopard, Indian Star and Mediterrean Spur-thighed tortoises and each pack contains everything you need to get started (and more!). These starter kits are very popular and take the stress out of hours (or even weeks!) of searching for products and you can rest assured knowing that each and every product in our starter packs have been personally tested by us, so you don’t have to.
Video on how to set up your tortoise enclosure
This video shows you everything you will need to get set up and ready for your baby tortoise. We encourage every new tortoise owner to watch this demonstration on how to set up your baby tortoise’s new home and it has some useful tips for newbies.
What items are needed in my tortoise enclosure?
In summary you will need the following items for your tortoise setup:
indoor (and outdoor) housing
UVB basking bulb (UVB is essential)
holder+stand (if required) for UVB and/or ceramic heating bulb
hides (e.g. plants, half-log hides, flower pot on it’s side)
a humid area (a handful of our lovely soft damp sphagnum moss in a hide is perfect)
thermometer (we love these digital thermometers with a minimum/maximum setting)
tub for bathing
water mister to help maintain humidity
overnight heating (if required).
Examples of indoor tortoise tables and outdoor tortoise enclosures:
Here are some examples of indoor tortoise table setups and outdoor enclosures, suitable for hatchling and juvenile leopards, indian stars and greek tortoises.
Example of outdoor tortoise enclosure
Example of indoor tortoise enclosure using a tortoise table
Do I need to buy a ready made tortoise table or can I build my own?
You can either buy a ready made tortoise table, or make your own (cheaper than ready made), or use an Underbed storage box, a bookcase on it's back (but the back would need to be made strong to hold the weight of the soil), plasterers tub or mixing tray, bottom tray from large rabbit cage.. Any of these will be OK short term as long as sides are 20cm+, width 50cm+ and length 85-100cm+ for hatchling tortoise.
What size tortoise enclosure do I need?
A tortoise needs a minimum area of 10x the length of the tortoise, squared.
Our hatchlings start from about 5cm long, so a minimum area required is 50cm x 50cm (obviously increasing table size as your little one grows). Baby tortoises can be housed indoors in open-topped tortoise tables. Adult tortoises may need a heated shed or greenhouse, depending on the breed of tortoise.
What substrate should I use?
We recommend a mix of organic top soil and play pit sand. The ratio of top soil to play pit sand depends on the breed of tortoise - our care sheets below give details on the substrate blend required for the breeds we sell:
Mediterranean Spur Thighed (“Greek”) Tortoises
We also sell specially prepared substrate for each of the above tortoises in our online shop.
What UVB basking bulb should I use?
UVB is vital for the health of your tortoise allows vitamin D3 to be absorbed into your tortoise which in turn works with the calcium in a healthy diet to allow their bones and shells to be strong and healthy (and will help prevent metabolic bone disease).
There are lots of options out there which are suitable (some emitting different levels of UVB for different breeds of tortoise) but for a starter indoor tortoise table for hatchlings we recommend using a combined UVA + UVB basking bulb for the basking area. This provides essential UVB as well as heat to encourage basking and thermoregulation.
Turn on basking bulb for 12 hours per day (summer); 8 hours per day (winter).
Make sure the tortoise is unable to touch the bulb to prevent burning/overheating.
The bulb should be positioned approx 30cm away from top of the tortoise’s shell, depending on manufacturer’s instructions. If using a mercury vapour bulb it must be positioned vertically, not at an angle.
Replace bulbs every 6-12 months as UVB degrades and no longer beneficial to your tortoise
Avoid using the ‘spiral’ shaped UVB bulbs as there have been reports that these can cause blindness in tortoises.
Avoid purchasing ‘cheap’ unbranded UVB bulbs, or those that do not have UV-index information/UVB output information, or details on suitability for your breed of tortoise as they could potentially put your tortoise at risk.
What thermometer do you recommend?
Our personal favourite (and the one that we use in majority of our setups) is a digital thermometer that stores the minimum and maximum temperatures since you last reset it. This is invaluable for checking overnight temperatures (and saves you getting up at the coldest time of night between 2-5am to check the temperatures!). We use these types of thermometers every day and constantly monitor temperatures in all of our tortoise enclosures (even when you have everything setup correctly, don’t assume that it will always be OK as outside temperatures affect indoors and therefore tortoise table temperatures). We also have a useful YouTube video on other thermometers we use.
Where can I purchase a tortoise table or equipment for my tortoise?
You can purchase tortoise tables and any equipment, accessories or food from our shop.
How do I heat the tortoise enclosure at night?
There are a number of ways you can heat your tortoise enclosure at night. Please see this page for details.
Where can I get more information on tortoise care?
We have lots of useful information on this website and a number of commonly asked questions can be found in the FAQ drop-down at the top of the page. We have also prepared many short videos on tortoise care on our YouTube channel that you may also find helpful.