The tortoise is an amazing creature to keep as a pet. It hibernates behind the sofa all winter and comes out to its big water dish in the spring and empties itself out in the water. Then it’s good to go for wandering about the house on its own. As the article says, keep water dishes clean and available and give it balanced diet including greens.
Our Sonoran Desert tortoise, Frances, sleeps in a box in the closet next to my desk all winter. In the spring when I hear her scratching I put her outside in her habitat where she gets to eat dichondra, hibiscus, grape leaves, strawberry leaves, Bermuda grass, fescue, weeds, and Zoomed grassland tortoise food, as well as the occasional corn cobette or lettuce leaf.
During the middle of the scorching Arizona summer days she stays in the burrow I built for her, complete with cool air from the house blown in through a dryer hose by a little computer fan.
Yeah, she’s spoiled.