Who Lives Here: Introducing Ella

This spring we adopted a Testudo hermanni hercegovinensis (Dalmatian or Hermanns Tortoise) from a local person who needed to re-home her.  He had purchased her at a pet store labled as a Russian Tortoise.  As a side note, Russian Tortoise's look nothing like Ella.  His plans to purchase a house changed and instead he was going back to school.   It's hard to keep a tortoise inside, especially in a rental.  He had named her Tankerella or Ella for short.  After some messaging back and forth a date and time had been selected for the exchange.  On April 27th she can home with me in the car on my floor board in a Nike box. 

Mediterranean tortoises are native  to Greece, Italy and the Balkans in southern Europe.  Dalmatians are a smaller type of tortoises with males only getting to 4.5" and females 6".  Their weights can vary any where from 350-500 grams for males and 550-1000 grams for females.  Using this information, Ella is nearly full grown. 

Her needs are pretty similar to Petunia's (our marginated tortoise).  Consequently, her enclosure is set up the same way Petunia's is, with hides, edible plants, and a water dish she can sit in.  She eats a diet of grocery greens and weeds.  Eating fruits or meat can lead to digestive issues and parasite blooms.  She was fed a diet that included bell peppers at her old home and I can definitely see some differences in her digestive habits.   We have her on a pretty good diet currently.  I wish there were more weeds in it, but Ella is a bit of a princess when it comes to her food.  She wants the grocery store stuff, not the purslane and mulberry tree leaves.  Still I try to add healthy variety.

Where Petunia is a very shy guy, Ella is the complete opposite.  She has begun to meet us when we drop off her food each morning and is completely comfortable eating in front of us.  We often find her out walking around throughout the day.

She is an eating machine and her presences has sprung Petunia into eating more.  They plow through their daily tortoise salads and are munching away on the plants in their tortoise garden.  Consequently, the plants are looking a little rough.  I'm working on ways to keep things lush enough to have some quality shade for them to cool off in, and not go insane trying to keep up with the destruction.

About two months in and I can say she has settled into her new home really well.  After the year it took Petunia, I was shocked.  While she isn't as cuddly as the dogs or cat, so far she's been a great addition to the tortoise/turtle garden.