Hi

I am very keen to get a tortoise, it would be my first one. The website is great and very useful,, quick question - what do you all do when you go on holiday - do you get someone to come and feed them or do you have to put them in the 'kennels'?!

Hi,

Thank you for your post and comments and im glad you find our website useful. As this will be your first tortoise can i suggest you read through our care sheets, you will find these under "The Tortoise" in the menu on the left. We also have a UK breeders list. We strongly advise everyone to buy from a reputable breeder rather than a pet shop or online dealer.

To answer your other question regarding what we do when we have holidays......We are not a santuary where we keep and rescue lots of tortoises as some people are led to believe <g>. We are a small group of individuals who work from home and when we take our holidays there is always someone from our team to cover.

Hope this answers your questions

Ali

Hi Tam, and welcome to the TPG forum. Were you asking what we do as individuals when we go on holiday? I think a lot of us have friends and neighbours who are trained up to come in and look after the tortoises when we are on holiday. If the torts are indoors (like in the Spring and Autumn when weather might not be so good), then lights etc. are on timers, so people just have to feed and bathe the torts (that's what I do anyway). It would be interesting to hear what others do. I don't think I would ever board my tortoise in kennels because of the potential problem of spread of disease if there are other tortoises in the kennels, and if strict hygiene were not practiced.

Nina

Hi, I am very lucky that I have a close friend who takes the time off of her work to look after my torts. As for boarding, there are places like this for tortoises but I personally would not like to leave my tortoises there for many reasons, poor hygeine from previous tenants, cross infection, stress to my torts from the change of enviroment to name but a few. It is best not to think that your tortoise would be best with someone else who has a tortoise, this is not the case, it can cause stress and risk of passing'germs' for want of a better word. Try to get someone to pop in, OR if it is a baby tortoise can you uplift the complete set up to a friend house. The less disruption the better.

HTH

Elaine

I take my tortoises with me when I go on holiday. We very rarely go over to our caravan but, when we do, the tortoises come with us. They don't seem to get stressed and have an indoor and outdoor enclosure over there ready for when we go. They travel in a large pet carrier under a towel and sleep for the whole journey. I know a few people who do the same without any problems so don't see why we shouldn't :) It's a holiday for them as well and they really do seem to enjoy themselves. A torty holiday :)

Joanne xx

Thanks to all the replies, I will ask my neighbour to come and feed him and ensure he is ok

Hi Tam, You could always show her how to use this forum and then help would always be at hand.

TC

Elaine