How to Care for a Desert Tortoise

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm James Dix from Reptile Rescue Service in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a little terrarium set up for like you can do for a desert tortoise or an African spur-thighed, which is an African desert tortoise. We have a mixture of sand in here, we have some rocks to climb on to help promote stimulation for appetite, we have heat lamps and we also have a strip light up here that stimulates UVB rays, very critical with these guys. These run ten hours a day, everyday, seven days a week with the lights. We have live cactus's in here so in between the feeding of vegetables, they can also eat some live cactus, like they would in the wild. Also, they climb over these rocks and that helps them exercise and also not get obese from just sitting there and having food put in. It's very important, with tortoises, that you stimulate their appetite, if you always put food in a dish, like this here, and they know everyday at a certain time that it's going to be there, they get lazy, so a lot of times you have to take and skip a day, or two, with no food and make the turtle roam around and exercise, or the tortoise, as he climbs over the rocks and this, this helps him exercise and lose weight and also it stimulates his appetite so that he will always eat good and be healthy for you. Very important that you have a set up light then."