General Care
Caring for a desert tortoise requires a long-term commitment from the adopter. They assume responsibility for the general well being of their tortoise, including feeding, veterinary care and  safety. These creatures can teach many life lessons to children, including responsibility, compassion and commitment. Children can participate in the everyday care of the tortoise with adult supervision.  

As of January 2008, individuals are allowed to adopt one tortoise per household. If you already have a desert tortoise, you will not be permitted to adopt another. Desert tortoises are solitary animals, and they do not require a second tortoise to keep it company.

If you have a male and female pair, it is even more important to create two separate enclosure areas to prevent breeding. A female desert tortoise can store sperm for several years, meaning that one mating can result in several years of hatchlings. The Arizona Game and Fish Department strongly discourages breeding captive tortoises. Each year there are approximately 300-400 desert tortoises available for adoption throughout the state, not including hundreds of unwanted hatchling tortoises. Uncontrolled breeding results in more tortoises than there are good homes to adopt them. Caring for unwanted tortoises uses resources that would otherwise help with Arizona’s desert tortoise conservation efforts.

Hatchlings also require special diets, and they are difficult to care for in captivity. They are often given away to family and friends that have not received the proper information on how to care for them. These hatchlings frequently acquire chronic diseases or die. State law requires hatchlings produced in captivity to be given away or turned over to a state-sanctioned adoption facility within 24 months of hatching.   

Desert tortoises require some special acommodations to help them thrive. Even kind, well-behaved dogs can pose a deadly threat to captive desert tortoises. Adopters that have a dog must keep them in separate fenced areas. A dog mauling can result in severe injuries and expensive veterinary bills, and possibly even death for desert tortoises. 

Desert tortoises also need to be housed separately from other turtle or tortoise species to avoid spreading potentially fatal diseases and parasites among species. 

The desert tortoise is a reptile. They cannot regulate their body temperature like warm-blooded animals. Tortoises need to spend most of their time in a thick-walled, insulating burrow to protect them from temperatures that are too hot or too cold. To keep cool in the summer, they remain in their burrow most of the day, feeding briefly in the early morning and early evening. In the winter, desert tortoises will hibernate, emerging only on very warm days. If a tortoise does not hibernate in the winter, it could be a sign that it is sick, and it should be taken for a veterinary health check-up.

The sex of a tortoise can only be determined after it has reached about 6 inches in length. The plastron, or bottom of the shell, is concave towards the rear in males, while it is flat in females. 

     
The underside of a male desert tortoise, showing the concavity towards the rear (right of picture).

The flat underside of a female desert tortoise.

Like all reptiles, tortoises carry the bacteria salmonella in their digestive tracts. Humans can become infected with the disease salmonellosis through contact with the feces of a turtle that carries the bacteria. Children have a higher risk of salmonellosis infection from turtles because they are more likely to play with the animal, putting their hands or the turtle near their mouth. To learn more about the risks associated with turtles and salmonellosis, visit the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.

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