Kozmic Dreams Box Tortoises

My Pet Tortoises

I currently have three box tortoises. Two are considered common box tortoises. One is a female three-toed box tortoise (Terrapene carolina triunguis) that I've had since 1998. Her name is Carolina. The other is a male Eastern box tortoise (Terrapene carolina carolina) named Bob. I adopted Bob from Evan Becigneul, the grandson of Carol Wilczynski who is also a "rock hound" like myself. The third tortoise is a female Russian or Horsfield's box tortoise (Testudo (Agrionemys) horsfieldii). Her name is Bobber because she always bobs her head. My tortoises are the luckiest captive tortoises ever. They get to roam freely on the first floor of my home. They aren't too messy to clean up after so I figure they don't need to be kept in a cage (they usually do their business right in the sink at feeding time). One problem I've had up until recently is the drying out of their skin. I run humidifiers to keep the air moist in the house and have used vegetable oils to help soften their skin. I don't normally endorse products, but nothing has worked as well as the product I just recently discovered called VitaShell, made by TetraFauna. After just one application, there was a noticeable improvement. I've only applied it four times, once a week and their skin and shells look much healthier. To learn more about box tortoises living naturally in the United States, click here. I found out that a lot of Russian tortoises go through torturous conditions to get here, so I'm not sure I would ever buy one again. Click here to read about the Russian tortoise trade.

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