Reader Divy Figueroa and her husband, Ivan Alfonso, run an exotic-animal mobile vet operation in Florida near Orlando. (If you have an exotic animal that needs inspection or treatment, contact them). But they also have a gazillion pets, including several parrots, a dog, two cats (one of which, Jango, has been featured here), and well over a hundred turtles of many species. Divy sent me some pictures of their setup and then some special pictures of “cherry-head” tortoises, an eastern variant of the red-footed tortoise (Chelonoidis carbonarius) from the Amazon basin.
Divy’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. It began when I simply asked Divy to send me a photo of their backyard turtle-rearing facilities, and was stunned to get these photos:
Here are some photos of several enclosures and ponds we have on our property. This enclosure houses 4 turtles, all inside the water tub:
These waterland tubs are the most common on our property. They come in 3 different sizes (these are medium). Turtles can come out to dry, bury themselves, or lay eggs.
These are our 4 largest ponds. They house an assortment of turtle species, including soft-shells and hard-shell turtles. As you can see, the first two have vegetation, but the last two do not. This is because we recently introduced some turtles to the last two, and they completely eradicated all the vegetation. The cows! Ivan will be re-seeding the ponds soon, so they have plenty of vegetation for food, but also to protect from the sun and from herons that like to pillage the ponds, searching for fish and possibly baby turtles.
The turtles are not for sale, but are more or less “pets”. They’ve been acquired over the years as rescues, donations, and some purchases.
And the cherry-heads:
These are some of my cherry-head tortoises. They are completely terrestrial, but they have a shallow trough of water for drinking and wading into. They are very personable, and though they had already eaten, they were coming to see what I had to offer. They are one of my favorites.
All you have to do is walk by their pen, and they just walk over to you! Of course, they’re always hoping for a treat, as they are eating machines. We feed them kale, turnip greens, cactus pads, hibiscus and mulberry leaves, wildflowers, carrots, shredded squash and zucchini. Every so often they get some papaya or other fruit, but only as a treat. We’ll also make them commercial reptile gels for some protein.
We have 6 adults, divided in 2 pens.The cherry head on the right is Herschel, the daddy and the only male in the pen. The tortoise on the left is actually a hybrid of a red-footed and a sulcata {an African spurred tortoise, Centrochelys sulcata]. She was gifted to us several years ago, and she is part of the gang. I have never observed Herschel breeding her to date. [JAC: The middle tortoise is a female cherry-head.]
We don’t feed fruit often, but they get every so often as a treat. Here they were enjoying a nice piece of watermelon on a hot summer day.
They see you come by the enclosure, and they will come right over to see if you have any food for them.
We found 3 eggs in one of the pens earlier this year, but only one hatched. Here are pics of the baby, who is now almost 4 months old:
Hatching:
It was so tiny when it hatched. The picture doesn’t capture how tiny it was! [JAC: note the dime, though, for scale! See here for photos of two other species of tortoises hatching in their care.]
This was taken today. Notice all the red, thus the name, cherry head. [JAC: taken yesterday].
Divy and Jango:
Wow! Quite the set up! Nice tortoises.
Very nice. Thanks Divy. I never thought of turtles purposely interacting with humans. Something new to me.
Very well done! This is clearly one of the very responsible operations for keeping reptiles in Florida. I come across entertaining but also disturbing clips on FB of a guy who goes out at night to remove exotic herps that are living and breeding in the Everglades, and the things he sees! Anacondas? Huge Chameleons? And more. Omg.
I’ve always found turtles to be strangely charming. Also, they seem to be more intelligent than people let on for reptiles.
One thing that always surprised me, was the smell. I had a friend who kept turtles. They were fine, little things, cute, but the smell was terrible.
Thanks for showing how to care for turtles – quite an operation but amazing it can be done all under one roof!
What a fantastic environment for happy, healthy animals!
A very sweet red-footed tortoise lives at my (not so sweet) chinchilla’s vet clinic, who loves to be pet (including an adorable butt wiggle when you rub the back of her shell). She’s very socialized to people, and will seek out and cuddle on the ground with the staff.
If the first picture is a challenge to “Find the Turtle,” I found it!
Great pictures of wonderful turtles. I used to keep red-eared sliders when I was a kid. I’d catch them at our local pond or wandering across the streets near the pond. I wasn’t mature enough to care for them the way I should have—actually I should have enjoyed them in the wild and not captured them at all—but I did love my turtles.
amazing
Great pictures! 🐢🐢🐢
How cool! And you don’t have to walk them, and (I’m guessing) they don’t bark at all hours! Also, their food is pretty cheap.
best and thanks,
D.A.
NYC
Very cool habitats for those gorgeous turtles/tortoises. What a cute baby cherry head…too bad it doesn’t have any hatchling compadres.