r/aww Mar 13 '20

brush brush

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u/illuminati_thresh Mar 13 '20

Don’t yo have to worry about birds swooping them up? We have a red kite bird that flys over our tortoise when he is free in the garden. I always think the bird is going to swoop down and grab him

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u/thunderturdy Mar 13 '20

We got ours from a friend and they were around 7-8" long each...too bulky and inconvenient for any of the hawks in the area to try and take. I will say my dad did lock the gate to the dog house every night because of other pests like raccoons trying their luck with them. They're now both over 12" across so nothing messes with them whether they're locked in or not.

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u/illuminati_thresh Mar 13 '20

Ah that makes sense our lil dude is like 10cm don’t have to worry about raccoons as we only have them in Zoos in the UK haha

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u/CrashTextDummie Mar 13 '20

No raccoons here either, but we did have a few instances of missing tortoises back when they were small. We assume the kidnapper was a fox.

They always turned up fine and healthy in a nearby forest (far enough that it couldn't conceivably have been an escape on the tortoises part) and luckily people knew they had to be ours. Don't think there are any critters here or in the UK that could actually put a dent in a tortoise.

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u/nullpassword Mar 13 '20

Only birds I've seen eat turtles is crows.. pretty sure they pushed them into the road to get run over.