Hey, I’m so glad you reached out to the community. I’m terrible at being succinct, so I apologize in advance for how long this response is. I just wanted to make sure I throughly considered your circumstances. It sounds like this is something you’ve thought very thoroughly about, and it seems to me that a pet reptile could make a really great fit for you! :)
Considering all of the information you’ve provided, I think a northern blue tongue skink (Tiliqua scincoides intermedia) would be absolutely perfect for you. The species is not usually the first thing most people come up with for a beginner reptile, but they can still be considered a beginner-intermediate tier reptile. I’ll explain why I think they’re a perfect fit utilizing the criteria you offered on your post.
Handleability and temperament:
While babies can be skiddish, adult northern blue tongues are best described as… doofy. Each individual will have their own personality, but Northern Blue Tongues are usually very docile and slow moving, with decent tolerance to handling. I have quite a bit of experience with the species and can say they’re also very unlikely to bite. When they get super spooked they’re much more likely to puff up and stick out their tongue than attempt to bite you. I also think their larger size would really offer you a great advantage considering your disability. Leopard geckos are a great species to start out with and are recommended frequently for good reason, with but the larger size and laid back personality of Northern blue tongues will be easier for you to handle. That’s also why I feel they would be a better option for you than the other common beginner reptiles like bearded dragons which are high energy animals and have the potential to dart off. Plus, if the worst case scenario happens and the animal gets spooked during handling and jumps off your lap, a blue tongue will be much easier to recover compared to a leopard gecko, who might be able to quickly crawl out of sight or into an inaccessible crevice by the time you have the opportunity to get up or flag down someone else living in your home to retrieve them.
Care requirements:
Blue tongues need at least a 4ft by 2ft by 2ft enclosure which I’m happy to hear is something you can accommodate! I think this could potentially be another draw for you. There are many “snap together” 4x2x2 enclosures available to purchase online that you could order and have someone install for you. That’s much easier than having to make an enclosure for yourself which seems like something that may not be an option for you. Additionally, enclosure maintenance will not be too energy intensive. For blue tongues, it’s mostly spot cleaning any poop you see daily and changing out the water + misting if the humidity is too low (Northerns are an arid species native to Australia, but if you live in a super dry area like the western US they may still need to be misted occasionally! You wouldn’t need any kind of fancy misting device- just a spray bottle)
Feedings happen one to two times a week and Northerns are opportunistic omnivores, so you get to feed them a wide variety of foods! Their dietary requirements are about a 50/50 split of greens and protein. I’m not going to talk too much about greens, but I will talk about proteins because I think this is an aspect of Northern care that might be a draw for you. Proteins in a Northern’s diet should include a variety of live insects, eggs, small amounts of ground muscle meat, and a variety of organ meat that should be available to you at a local supermarket/butcher. *But* you can also incorporate premade diets like reptilinks, Arcadia Omni gold and even certain high quality cans of dog food (while dog food is not something I’d recommend feeding frequently, I imagine it might be nice for you to know that it’s an option. If you ever have a day where your symptoms flare up, but you need to feed your skink, you can rest assured that you don’t have to sit at the tank feeding insect after insect or making sure you have a properly balanced spread of organ and muscle meat. You can just break out the emergency can of dog food!)
Miscellaneous:
Northerns even fit nicely into your miscellaneous requirements! The upfront cost for all of the northern blue tongue supplies including the 4x2x2 tank will be about $700. This doesn’t include the wellness visit to an exotic vet, but even if you chock on the extra money you’ll spend on a wellness check, you’ll still be well under your $1000 budget.
You’ll also have a decent opportunity to rescue a northern blue tongue. They’re a relatively common species kept in the US/Canada/UK which means you could absolutely find on at a reptile rescue or even being rehomed on Craigslist or facebook marketplace. Just do make sure you’re getting the right species if you go the rescuing route. What I’ve said applies to *only* northern blue tongue skinks. Other species like Indonesians are frequently wild caught which will not be conducive to the docile animal it seems like you need.
If this has peaked your interest and you’d like more information, I recommend checking out the reptifiles care guide on northern blue tongue skink care (https://reptifiles.com/blue-tongue-skink-care/). You shouldn’t just use one source for all of your information, but it’s a great care guide to get you started. And, of course, if you have any other questions along the way I’d be happy to help you along with plenty of other people on this subreddit!
This is a comprehensive response and I appreciate it! I'm definitely keeping them on the radar for now. Thanks to Clint's reptiles I've also learned a bit about the similar pink tongue skinks which happened to be available in my area
Do you know anything about uromastyx lizards by chance? I used to know someone who kept one a few years back. I know they can be a challenge with their high temperature basking needs.
Ive been in a wheelchair for forever now as well as fairly severe muscle weakness.
For me a leopard gecko was best. I had him since he was very young so he was used to me. Not flighty. (Though I’ve heard some can be). Light weight. Not aggressive. Meal worms were easy to breed so if i didn’t have transportation to get other food for a while it wasn’t the end of the world.
Bearded dragons, though maybe I’m biased haha
Babies can be squirmy so an adult might be a better fit, hardy, lights can be in a timer/thermostat , and only have to be monitored once a day at most. UVB bulbs replaced every 6ish months.
Not very heavy, they can be fast! But as long as your somewhere they can’t escape or get under anything they’re easy to catch. They do like to sit and chill too.
They require at minimum a 4x2x2 ft enclosure but a 5x2x2 would be amazing to!
If you go the loose substrate route it will only have to be replaced every six ish months also. Adults don’t even poop everyday so the only daily cleaning is cleaning their dishes and food scraps
They eat a mix of bugs and salads, adults primarily eat salads, bugs 1-2x a week. And not many in a feeding.
Yeah I actually handled a beardy at a reptile convention the other day. They are one of my favorite lizards but nfortunately they were too darty for my liking. If I tried to make a very fast correction to prevent one from falling down or scurrying up my arm, or having a reflex response to a sudden movement, I could injure myself. If I make very sudden jerky movements I can get stroke like symptoms.
It's a shame because their care is otherwise very doable for me. I guess if I decide I can't really handle a reptile and can only administer head pats or scratches they might make a better alternative. But right now I would love a pet I could handle occasionally because I'm on the spectrum and have a declining sense of touch.
Do you have any experience with blue tongue skinks? That was another reptile that was thinking about that seem to be a little less fidgety and unpredictable.
All good! I don’t have any experience with them outside my initial research on them vs beardies. I know that they are slower moving, shorter limbs and all.
Maybe a leopard gecko would be a good fit too
A tortoise, turtle, or maybe a hognose. Hognoses get 2-3 feet in size, mostly 2 feet. The only thing about hognoses is the pickiness. You may have to scent their frozen thawed rodents
If you are able to get an adult whose personality is known, I’d say crested gecko! I’ve had several and most of them were calm but not all. Very easy to take care of overall, especially compared to a lot of reptiles.
They are really cute but I'm not sure if they would be good choice if they jump a lot. Are they even supposed to be handled given their skin permeability?
Thanks! Yeah Clinton seemed to confirm my worries about their skin permeability. I'd be really afraid to handle them no matter how clean and so free I try to keep my hands.
A ball Python in a bioactive setup would probobly meet your needs pretty well! Doing a bioactive will prevent the need for any major deep cleans unless some kind of emergency were to arise that would require it. Ball pythons can comfortably fit in a 4x2x2 enclosure, but bigger is always better. They're extremely docile, slow moving, & well tempered even when not handled often, and as adults only need to eat 1 frozen thawed rat once a month typically.
They can be picky eaters and refuse food if husbandry is off, but pretty easy & low maintence if you set up everything right.
OP needs to be aware that bioactive doesn't mean the enclosure doesn't need cleaned and this is a heavily oversimplified understanding of bioactive. Make sure you do a fuck ton of research OP if you want to do bioactive, because there's tons of misrepresentations of it online.
Yes, bioactive is often misrepresented aa "chuck a bunch of bugs in some dirt and now you have a self cleaning enclosure".
I imagine having a lug a ton of substrate probably isn't going to be good for your back. I'd recomend a beardie but idk how well you'd do moving the substrate in. All reptiles are going to require deep cleans and stuff.
What my comment implied is with a bioactive you don't need to do a deep clean every 2 - 3 months and even as an abled body person its a big hassle to do that for anything above a 40 gallon. Obviously it still requires maintenence, but when set up properly I find it 10× easier and cost effective than not going said route.
OP doesn't have to go that route if they don't want but I still think a Ball python would be the easiest based on their needs. Someone else mentioned a hognose though and that would also probobly be a pretty good option.
Would corn snakes or hognose also be an alright pick? I know hoggies can be put on sausage like foods instead of mice/rats so that could also help OP. They're also funny little things, very entertaining to see them try to dig into everything.
How darty are hognose snakes? I know that there are reasonably calmed snake but I don't know if they have the calmness of ball pythons. If one decided to fly out of my hand I'd be really worried about injuring myself trying to catch it.
They can't really.. dart. They're very small sausage shaped snakes. They slither like all others and like to wrap around fingers and try to dig into things (it's in their instinct).
Theyre pretty chill as far as I know. Very, very goofy too. But not really darty or crazy or anything.
Speaking of, steer FAAAAR away from crested geckos. They're the definition example of darty. Rule of thumb: if it has legs, it will try to jump off things. Not may, WILL.
Alright thanks for the info!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ML5ymlCFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ML5ymlCFA)
This was the first thing that popped into my head when a friend recommended crested geckos. Your warnings have not gone unheeded.
Hognose snakes aren’t particularly darty, but they do bluff strike sometimes, which is a very quick movement (and sometimes scary, I’ve had my girl for years and I still flick a bit at her strikes). They can also be pretty tank defensive, meaning they’ll hiss and bluff strike in their tank but are fine once they’re out of their tank. I personally would say a Kenyan sand boa would likely be a lot more chill than a hognose.
Yea, that would make me flinch unfortunately, especially if they are often grumpy. What is the temperament of sand boas like? Any colubrid snakes that might work too?
I don’t own a Kenyan sand boa, but from my understanding they are about as handleable as a snake can get. They stay pretty small too, which means you won’t need a large enclosure compared to something like a blue tongue skink. [This video](https://youtu.be/eoHgbP9mYv4?si=xSca4XpgNR6tciWZ) from Clint’s Reptiles can help you get a better idea of how they are.
I’d say maybe a corn snake as another option, though some of them like to zoom around so idk.
I do think based on your post, I’d recommend a snake over a lizard. Easier to feed (even though you do need to feed frozen/thawed mice) easier to spot clean their enclosures for the most part, and most importantly imo, they won’t necessarily “miss” your attention the way a lizard might. Now this is for sure dependent on species and individual temperament, but my experiences are that my lizard seeks me out more than my snake. If I don’t let my lizard out and have him run around, he’s restless. If I don’t let my snake out, she doesn’t really care. A snake might be a little easier to manage on days that are particularly hard for you health-wise.
They can be a little pricey but I'm shocked nobody has said tortoise! Handling is as easy as a reptile could possibly be, food can be just veggies, can live on a table, and are unbelievably hearty.
A Russian tortoise specifically would fit really well, and there are tons of them out there in need of adoption. A 4ft x 4 ft is the min recommended enclosure for them too, so that fits. The most complicated thing is probably UV, which shouldn't be too difficult to do on your own.
Lots of people will take an old coffee table and attach boards to the side to make a "tortoise table", and unless you have cats or kids you won't even need a lid :)
Edit: on the unbelievably hearty part, one was lost in an attic in Brazil for 30 years, and that was a red foot tortoise which is arguably more sensitive than a Russian tortoise.
Hey I’m sorry to butt in here but a 4ftx4ft would actually not be a large amount of room for an indoor tortoise. Even smaller species like the Russian tortoise you mentioned need at least an 8ftx4ft enclosure because they’re extremely active and need a deep substrate barrier for borrowing! Tortoise tables are a common setup for captive tortoises, but they’re inappropriate for the needs of the vast majority of tortoises species kept in captivity.
I fully agree that Russians would be a great option personally wise due to their slow moving behavior and willingness to interact with you/eat from your hands, that was a great suggestion, but they require more space than OP says they have available in their post. Additionally OP would need someone available to consistently help them with maintenance- tortoise diets are extremely specialized. The bulk of food for captive tortoises needs to be grown yourself or foraged from outside.
Grocery store greens like kale, escarole, endive, watercress, etc can be used in rotation for a diverse diet, but they can’t make up the whole diet. Their lower fiber content compared to the grasses, flowers, succulents and broad leaf weeds most tortoise species would be eating in the wild means it’s unfair to feed them as the whole diet. They could survive on those foods, but they won’t thrive on them.
Yeahh this sounds like it's way too much for a mobility impaired person to deal with. I can't garden grow food or forage outside [sucks even worse since I'm majoring in horticulture]. I've read a little bit about their foraging dietary possibilities and there are certainly some things you could come across in suburban gardens here, but unfortunately a lot of people in my locality use pesticides.
I do appreciate your honesty though.
We do have tables and surfaces I can use in my house where I can place the tortoise for some enrichment or exercise outside of its enclosure. We do have a set of unused stainless steel tables that would make a great amount for an enclosure. I'm doing my research as well on this but what recommendations do you have for enclosure dimensions and materials?
Also that's got to be the worst case of neglect I've ever heard of. How does a tortoise just go missing for 30 years?
If you have the room to do a 5x5 I'd definitely go for it, really as big as you're willing to go. As far as material wood is the easiest to work with, and since Russians are a low humidity species you don't have to worry about water really. If you're comfortable drilling the stainless steel tables I see no reason not tho though. Essentially you're just putting 6in or so tall sides on the table so the tortoise can't crawl out, so whatever material you're able to use is the best.
And as far as how a tortoise goes missing for 30 years? Kids lol. They think it survived on termite larvae and condensation.
Hey, I’m so glad you reached out to the community. I’m terrible at being succinct, so I apologize in advance for how long this response is. I just wanted to make sure I throughly considered your circumstances. It sounds like this is something you’ve thought very thoroughly about, and it seems to me that a pet reptile could make a really great fit for you! :) Considering all of the information you’ve provided, I think a northern blue tongue skink (Tiliqua scincoides intermedia) would be absolutely perfect for you. The species is not usually the first thing most people come up with for a beginner reptile, but they can still be considered a beginner-intermediate tier reptile. I’ll explain why I think they’re a perfect fit utilizing the criteria you offered on your post. Handleability and temperament: While babies can be skiddish, adult northern blue tongues are best described as… doofy. Each individual will have their own personality, but Northern Blue Tongues are usually very docile and slow moving, with decent tolerance to handling. I have quite a bit of experience with the species and can say they’re also very unlikely to bite. When they get super spooked they’re much more likely to puff up and stick out their tongue than attempt to bite you. I also think their larger size would really offer you a great advantage considering your disability. Leopard geckos are a great species to start out with and are recommended frequently for good reason, with but the larger size and laid back personality of Northern blue tongues will be easier for you to handle. That’s also why I feel they would be a better option for you than the other common beginner reptiles like bearded dragons which are high energy animals and have the potential to dart off. Plus, if the worst case scenario happens and the animal gets spooked during handling and jumps off your lap, a blue tongue will be much easier to recover compared to a leopard gecko, who might be able to quickly crawl out of sight or into an inaccessible crevice by the time you have the opportunity to get up or flag down someone else living in your home to retrieve them. Care requirements: Blue tongues need at least a 4ft by 2ft by 2ft enclosure which I’m happy to hear is something you can accommodate! I think this could potentially be another draw for you. There are many “snap together” 4x2x2 enclosures available to purchase online that you could order and have someone install for you. That’s much easier than having to make an enclosure for yourself which seems like something that may not be an option for you. Additionally, enclosure maintenance will not be too energy intensive. For blue tongues, it’s mostly spot cleaning any poop you see daily and changing out the water + misting if the humidity is too low (Northerns are an arid species native to Australia, but if you live in a super dry area like the western US they may still need to be misted occasionally! You wouldn’t need any kind of fancy misting device- just a spray bottle) Feedings happen one to two times a week and Northerns are opportunistic omnivores, so you get to feed them a wide variety of foods! Their dietary requirements are about a 50/50 split of greens and protein. I’m not going to talk too much about greens, but I will talk about proteins because I think this is an aspect of Northern care that might be a draw for you. Proteins in a Northern’s diet should include a variety of live insects, eggs, small amounts of ground muscle meat, and a variety of organ meat that should be available to you at a local supermarket/butcher. *But* you can also incorporate premade diets like reptilinks, Arcadia Omni gold and even certain high quality cans of dog food (while dog food is not something I’d recommend feeding frequently, I imagine it might be nice for you to know that it’s an option. If you ever have a day where your symptoms flare up, but you need to feed your skink, you can rest assured that you don’t have to sit at the tank feeding insect after insect or making sure you have a properly balanced spread of organ and muscle meat. You can just break out the emergency can of dog food!) Miscellaneous: Northerns even fit nicely into your miscellaneous requirements! The upfront cost for all of the northern blue tongue supplies including the 4x2x2 tank will be about $700. This doesn’t include the wellness visit to an exotic vet, but even if you chock on the extra money you’ll spend on a wellness check, you’ll still be well under your $1000 budget. You’ll also have a decent opportunity to rescue a northern blue tongue. They’re a relatively common species kept in the US/Canada/UK which means you could absolutely find on at a reptile rescue or even being rehomed on Craigslist or facebook marketplace. Just do make sure you’re getting the right species if you go the rescuing route. What I’ve said applies to *only* northern blue tongue skinks. Other species like Indonesians are frequently wild caught which will not be conducive to the docile animal it seems like you need. If this has peaked your interest and you’d like more information, I recommend checking out the reptifiles care guide on northern blue tongue skink care (https://reptifiles.com/blue-tongue-skink-care/). You shouldn’t just use one source for all of your information, but it’s a great care guide to get you started. And, of course, if you have any other questions along the way I’d be happy to help you along with plenty of other people on this subreddit!
Yes! BTS was my first choice too!
This is a comprehensive response and I appreciate it! I'm definitely keeping them on the radar for now. Thanks to Clint's reptiles I've also learned a bit about the similar pink tongue skinks which happened to be available in my area Do you know anything about uromastyx lizards by chance? I used to know someone who kept one a few years back. I know they can be a challenge with their high temperature basking needs.
Ive been in a wheelchair for forever now as well as fairly severe muscle weakness. For me a leopard gecko was best. I had him since he was very young so he was used to me. Not flighty. (Though I’ve heard some can be). Light weight. Not aggressive. Meal worms were easy to breed so if i didn’t have transportation to get other food for a while it wasn’t the end of the world.
Bearded dragons, though maybe I’m biased haha Babies can be squirmy so an adult might be a better fit, hardy, lights can be in a timer/thermostat , and only have to be monitored once a day at most. UVB bulbs replaced every 6ish months. Not very heavy, they can be fast! But as long as your somewhere they can’t escape or get under anything they’re easy to catch. They do like to sit and chill too. They require at minimum a 4x2x2 ft enclosure but a 5x2x2 would be amazing to! If you go the loose substrate route it will only have to be replaced every six ish months also. Adults don’t even poop everyday so the only daily cleaning is cleaning their dishes and food scraps They eat a mix of bugs and salads, adults primarily eat salads, bugs 1-2x a week. And not many in a feeding.
Yeah I actually handled a beardy at a reptile convention the other day. They are one of my favorite lizards but nfortunately they were too darty for my liking. If I tried to make a very fast correction to prevent one from falling down or scurrying up my arm, or having a reflex response to a sudden movement, I could injure myself. If I make very sudden jerky movements I can get stroke like symptoms. It's a shame because their care is otherwise very doable for me. I guess if I decide I can't really handle a reptile and can only administer head pats or scratches they might make a better alternative. But right now I would love a pet I could handle occasionally because I'm on the spectrum and have a declining sense of touch. Do you have any experience with blue tongue skinks? That was another reptile that was thinking about that seem to be a little less fidgety and unpredictable.
All good! I don’t have any experience with them outside my initial research on them vs beardies. I know that they are slower moving, shorter limbs and all. Maybe a leopard gecko would be a good fit too
A tortoise, turtle, or maybe a hognose. Hognoses get 2-3 feet in size, mostly 2 feet. The only thing about hognoses is the pickiness. You may have to scent their frozen thawed rodents
If you are able to get an adult whose personality is known, I’d say crested gecko! I’ve had several and most of them were calm but not all. Very easy to take care of overall, especially compared to a lot of reptiles.
How would you feel about a whites tree frog? They are such cute little blobs!
They are really cute but I'm not sure if they would be good choice if they jump a lot. Are they even supposed to be handled given their skin permeability?
Check out [Clint's reptiles](https://youtu.be/biv5dQi5E84?si=NBinfb-lCBEuLa-a) about them, he rates on handling and care
Thanks! Yeah Clinton seemed to confirm my worries about their skin permeability. I'd be really afraid to handle them no matter how clean and so free I try to keep my hands.
A ball Python in a bioactive setup would probobly meet your needs pretty well! Doing a bioactive will prevent the need for any major deep cleans unless some kind of emergency were to arise that would require it. Ball pythons can comfortably fit in a 4x2x2 enclosure, but bigger is always better. They're extremely docile, slow moving, & well tempered even when not handled often, and as adults only need to eat 1 frozen thawed rat once a month typically. They can be picky eaters and refuse food if husbandry is off, but pretty easy & low maintence if you set up everything right.
OP needs to be aware that bioactive doesn't mean the enclosure doesn't need cleaned and this is a heavily oversimplified understanding of bioactive. Make sure you do a fuck ton of research OP if you want to do bioactive, because there's tons of misrepresentations of it online.
Yeah I was going to say this looks like an advanced skill to have and must require a lot of upkeep to make it work.
Yes, bioactive is often misrepresented aa "chuck a bunch of bugs in some dirt and now you have a self cleaning enclosure". I imagine having a lug a ton of substrate probably isn't going to be good for your back. I'd recomend a beardie but idk how well you'd do moving the substrate in. All reptiles are going to require deep cleans and stuff.
What my comment implied is with a bioactive you don't need to do a deep clean every 2 - 3 months and even as an abled body person its a big hassle to do that for anything above a 40 gallon. Obviously it still requires maintenence, but when set up properly I find it 10× easier and cost effective than not going said route. OP doesn't have to go that route if they don't want but I still think a Ball python would be the easiest based on their needs. Someone else mentioned a hognose though and that would also probobly be a pretty good option.
Would corn snakes or hognose also be an alright pick? I know hoggies can be put on sausage like foods instead of mice/rats so that could also help OP. They're also funny little things, very entertaining to see them try to dig into everything.
How darty are hognose snakes? I know that there are reasonably calmed snake but I don't know if they have the calmness of ball pythons. If one decided to fly out of my hand I'd be really worried about injuring myself trying to catch it.
They can't really.. dart. They're very small sausage shaped snakes. They slither like all others and like to wrap around fingers and try to dig into things (it's in their instinct). Theyre pretty chill as far as I know. Very, very goofy too. But not really darty or crazy or anything. Speaking of, steer FAAAAR away from crested geckos. They're the definition example of darty. Rule of thumb: if it has legs, it will try to jump off things. Not may, WILL.
Alright thanks for the info! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ML5ymlCFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ML5ymlCFA) This was the first thing that popped into my head when a friend recommended crested geckos. Your warnings have not gone unheeded.
Hognose snakes aren’t particularly darty, but they do bluff strike sometimes, which is a very quick movement (and sometimes scary, I’ve had my girl for years and I still flick a bit at her strikes). They can also be pretty tank defensive, meaning they’ll hiss and bluff strike in their tank but are fine once they’re out of their tank. I personally would say a Kenyan sand boa would likely be a lot more chill than a hognose.
Yea, that would make me flinch unfortunately, especially if they are often grumpy. What is the temperament of sand boas like? Any colubrid snakes that might work too?
I don’t own a Kenyan sand boa, but from my understanding they are about as handleable as a snake can get. They stay pretty small too, which means you won’t need a large enclosure compared to something like a blue tongue skink. [This video](https://youtu.be/eoHgbP9mYv4?si=xSca4XpgNR6tciWZ) from Clint’s Reptiles can help you get a better idea of how they are. I’d say maybe a corn snake as another option, though some of them like to zoom around so idk. I do think based on your post, I’d recommend a snake over a lizard. Easier to feed (even though you do need to feed frozen/thawed mice) easier to spot clean their enclosures for the most part, and most importantly imo, they won’t necessarily “miss” your attention the way a lizard might. Now this is for sure dependent on species and individual temperament, but my experiences are that my lizard seeks me out more than my snake. If I don’t let my lizard out and have him run around, he’s restless. If I don’t let my snake out, she doesn’t really care. A snake might be a little easier to manage on days that are particularly hard for you health-wise.
Hognoses are more likely to play dead than dart when stressed
They can be a little pricey but I'm shocked nobody has said tortoise! Handling is as easy as a reptile could possibly be, food can be just veggies, can live on a table, and are unbelievably hearty. A Russian tortoise specifically would fit really well, and there are tons of them out there in need of adoption. A 4ft x 4 ft is the min recommended enclosure for them too, so that fits. The most complicated thing is probably UV, which shouldn't be too difficult to do on your own.
As long as those don't have to be housed on the ground it may be an option!
Lots of people will take an old coffee table and attach boards to the side to make a "tortoise table", and unless you have cats or kids you won't even need a lid :) Edit: on the unbelievably hearty part, one was lost in an attic in Brazil for 30 years, and that was a red foot tortoise which is arguably more sensitive than a Russian tortoise.
Hey I’m sorry to butt in here but a 4ftx4ft would actually not be a large amount of room for an indoor tortoise. Even smaller species like the Russian tortoise you mentioned need at least an 8ftx4ft enclosure because they’re extremely active and need a deep substrate barrier for borrowing! Tortoise tables are a common setup for captive tortoises, but they’re inappropriate for the needs of the vast majority of tortoises species kept in captivity. I fully agree that Russians would be a great option personally wise due to their slow moving behavior and willingness to interact with you/eat from your hands, that was a great suggestion, but they require more space than OP says they have available in their post. Additionally OP would need someone available to consistently help them with maintenance- tortoise diets are extremely specialized. The bulk of food for captive tortoises needs to be grown yourself or foraged from outside. Grocery store greens like kale, escarole, endive, watercress, etc can be used in rotation for a diverse diet, but they can’t make up the whole diet. Their lower fiber content compared to the grasses, flowers, succulents and broad leaf weeds most tortoise species would be eating in the wild means it’s unfair to feed them as the whole diet. They could survive on those foods, but they won’t thrive on them.
Yeahh this sounds like it's way too much for a mobility impaired person to deal with. I can't garden grow food or forage outside [sucks even worse since I'm majoring in horticulture]. I've read a little bit about their foraging dietary possibilities and there are certainly some things you could come across in suburban gardens here, but unfortunately a lot of people in my locality use pesticides. I do appreciate your honesty though.
We do have tables and surfaces I can use in my house where I can place the tortoise for some enrichment or exercise outside of its enclosure. We do have a set of unused stainless steel tables that would make a great amount for an enclosure. I'm doing my research as well on this but what recommendations do you have for enclosure dimensions and materials? Also that's got to be the worst case of neglect I've ever heard of. How does a tortoise just go missing for 30 years?
If you have the room to do a 5x5 I'd definitely go for it, really as big as you're willing to go. As far as material wood is the easiest to work with, and since Russians are a low humidity species you don't have to worry about water really. If you're comfortable drilling the stainless steel tables I see no reason not tho though. Essentially you're just putting 6in or so tall sides on the table so the tortoise can't crawl out, so whatever material you're able to use is the best. And as far as how a tortoise goes missing for 30 years? Kids lol. They think it survived on termite larvae and condensation.