A few years ago I was offered a tortoise through my work at a small zoo on the north east coast. My previous interests had been focused mainly on snakes, having kept boa constrictors for a number of years, and I had considered most chelonian species as far less exciting than the other reptiles I worked with. As the zoo went through a scheme of redevelopment I thought it important that I gained more experience in the husbandry of the turtles and tortoises I cared for.

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I read blogs, books, joined facebook groups dedicated to tortoise husbandry and found a wildly varying standard of information, even when researching a single species. The advice I received from other keepers ranged from "keep them inside, in an artificial, temperature controlled environment always, or they will get a respiratory infection and die" to "throw them out in the garden, with the dog and the chickens, and let them get on with it".

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Luckily, by the time Burger was offered to me, I had been able to wade through the huge amount of misinformation on the internet and elsewhere, and had a fairly good idea of the most up-to-date methods of tortoise care. Through organisations like the British Chelonia Group, the Tortoise Trust, and with a number of long-time keepers willing to share their knowledge and expertise, even going as far as allowing me to visit their homes and facilities, I had a good idea of the life I wanted to provide for a little Hermann's tortoise. 

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With the help of my partner, a qualified bricklayer and all-round handy and useful human being, we built a greenhouse, filled with soil and carefully landscaped to provide a number of different microclimates for the tortoise to use when the weather outside was too British for a Mediterranean species. We hung UVB basking lamps, mounted large patio heaters, planted lavenders, rosemary, carex grasses and a sectioned off a large outdoor space in which we we developed a habitat with a diverse range of edible plant species, in order to allow Burger to mostly be self-sufficient in her feeding during the warmer months.

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Now I share my life with three Hermann's tortoises (specifically Testudo hermanni boetgeri), who live together in Burgertown, and also a very small, surprise common musk turtle (Sternotherus odoratus) that appeared in the zoo's tropical house as a hatchling after a particularly hot summer. I don't really know how I got here. I went from thinking tortoises were a boring pet in your great Aunt's back garden, to spending almost every waking hour working on ways to make my own tortoises' lives better, and sharing what I have learned with others. I feel enormously privileged to have the means and the connections to be able to provide my animals with a species-specific, enriching and I think enjoyable life. And also extremely lucky that my bosses felt I was capable enough to take Burger on in the first place.