Hi everyone, I am getting everything ready for my new Hermann tortoise( coming soon from a recognised breeder. He /she(we think its a she) is about 5 mths old, I have a tortoise table and combined arcadia light coming but my question is does the tortoise need to have bowl of water in the enclosure to bath in? Obviously I will have a dish for drinking but have seen pics of other set ups that have a larger pool/dish in them. I know that we have to bath her to get her to drink but is it safe to leave a larger dish in there with water in. she is only tiny and am worried about her drowning in it!

Hello again Aleta,

Not via courier I hope,or be suspicious. What concerns me is why you are having to ask us. You should be getting full advice from your breeder. Equally if you "are worried" then DON'T put it in.
Tom

Hi Tom

thank you for your reply. No he/she is not being delivered by courier, we are collecting him next week. Even before reading the advice on here , as an animal lover I wouldn't have felt comfortable about transporting any animal via courier. Yes I have spoken to my breeder and she leaves a (small) water dish in there at all times, she didn't have a log type hide(habba hut) but just had plant post on their sides. The reason that I was posting on here is I have found that there is so much conflicting advice and  I like to  get as much information as possible. I had a very bad experience when I first started keeping fish and was given totally the wrong advice so I guess I need to hear things to few times to trust that that is the right thing to do. I just want to do the best thing for our new tortoise.

Hello Aleta, I take your point. A small dish is best. With a larger one, torts like to sit in it & in doing so, almost always foul the water. Hence it's best to allow a long soak every few days, under supervision.
In most issues there tends to be conflicting advice. Once you have the tort you will be more relaxed with it. It wants to be outside as much as possible now that summer is here. A wooden sided pen 15cm high is ideal, with wire netting on top.
Regards
Tom

hi Tom, thank you again for your advice. Tortoise here now and doing well, have a large indoor hamster/rabbit cage for outside for this summer, know that she will need a large enclosure by next year. I have the rabbit cage as I have a fox that comes in the garden in the middle of the day! before we got the tortoise I had not seen a fox for over ten years of living here and suddenly she appeared , sitting in the garden sun bathing like she didn't have a care in the world. I have shooed her away now each time I see her and the tortoise was not out at the time as weather has taken its time to warm up. The hamster cage has plastic sides that tortoise can not see through, but today I went out to check on her and she was upside down, I picked her up and she was very stressed and pretty warm (luckily it was only 19 degrees today and hazy sunshine) and wriggling in my hands which she doesn't usually do, I took her indoors and put her in her water pool in table and she had a few big drinks, kept an eye on her for rest of day she seems fine. There is nothing for her to climb on in her outdoor cage but I think she was trying to climb up the walls in the corner which is what she does indoors in her table and have found her a couple of times upside down in table, she is 6 months old,  at what age are they able to turn themselves over? I have seen a video online today with a much bigger tortoise turning her self back over. I have read I think on here that it could mean she is unhappy in the enclosure , the one i have indoors is her table which is approx 3ft and cage outside approx same, which I thought would be big enough.