WANTED: Sulcata Baby

Yep we are, I'm moving out next year, and planned to have a Sulcata bedroom lol. Just a room of his own. With out door supervision of course =)

A bedroom would be about right, haha! You would want to put plywood around the lower walls to protect them. But it will be quite a few years before it / they will be big enough to require such spacious quarters. Outdoor living during the summer (and part of fall and spring) is best. Even the most expensive lights don't equal good ol' sunlight, in my opinion. But special lights will suffice for the winter.

Adults can take surprisingly chilly temps if they are allowed to burrow as desired. We leave ours out all year, even when there is a short frost (it usually warms up the next day). So you might not have to bring them in for winter as early as you might think.

They REALLY like to dig and burrow (especially adults and sub adults), like a gopher tortoise. The newest theory on deformed shells (pyramiding) is that it is a lack of humidity from a lack of a dark, damp burrow that causes it, rather than a nutritional deficiency. So it is important to simulate burrowing as closely as possible.

Wow, wonderful ideas, thank you very much =) PM replied.

Here are the 2 babies that we hatched last summer.

We kept them out on the lanai until it got too cold recently. Now they are in the house with a light on them. But I put them back on the lanai (where they get some direct sunlight) whenever we have a nice, warm stretch of days.

I feed them a lot of a variety of dark, leafy greens, plus a variety of other green or colorful veggies, plus a little of some of the dust from the commercial tortoise food (or sometimes, sow cubes) we give the adults. I soak the veggies in water, and also soak the babies for a couple of hours, a couple of times per week. I probably only spend an hour or so per week of actually preparing food or actively caring for them.

Cute as I thought they'd be! PM sent.

I hope you don't mind my posting! Sullie babies can be tough to keep alive if you don't know what you're doing, and Kathy is right that the latest theory behind pyramiding (and, along those lines, premature death--way too many sulcata hatchlings die of renal failure due to chronic dehydration, which is part of the difficulty in keeping them alive) is humidity and moisture.

You should look at having a humid enclosure, including humid substrate, and soak them as often as every day. Mist them until their shells are soaked, as well, several times a day!

About your housing idea, Sulcatas are so big and destructive, they're really best kept as outdoor only pets, with a nice, big heated shed for climates with cold winters. There are some great ideas and examples of this on the forum I'm going to link to below. The forum is chock full of Sulcata keepers in all different climates. I'm sure you can get some great advice on a solution that would work for your situation. The issue, though, with the bedroom idea, is it can be hard to keep a Sulcata content in such a small space (consider this--they are geared to roam all day, every day, fantastic distances. A standard bedroom is a postage stamp compared to their natural ranges... Even the acre of land you might supply an adult is still small in the grand scheme of things!). Many Sulcata keepers have found that they have to at least give their adults the option to go out in their yard during the winter, or else the Sulcata will spend the whole day ramming the door to the yard trying to get out of their shed (in your case, ramming the sheetrock or the bedroom door!). Plus, it would be no fun having to carry a 50-100 lb Sulcata in and out of the house every day during the summer!

Also remember that twice as many tortoises means twice as much space and twice as much work, especially if they end up being male/male or male/female and need separate pens. Just getting one might be the better idea, especially if this is your first tortoise(s).

If you stop on over at TortoiseForum.org, you can get some great advice on Sulcata care. I especially recommend taking a look at these two threads: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-...-Of-Pyramiding and http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-...ngs-and-Babies You can also get some very well-started, healthy Sulcata hatchlings from a few breeders on the forum (i.e. Tyler Stewart, owner of TortoiseSupply.com), as well, if the deal with Kathy falls through for one reason or the other.

Just some information you might find useful. Good luck with your Sulcata(s) when you get them. They're great torts!

Thanks for the added info!

We haven't raised huge numbers of them. But I have found that the med / lg ones I have kept go "semi dormant" here in the winter. They often don't come out of their burrows for many days at a time, until there have been a few quite warm days (above 70 and sunny). They don't eat or move around much during those cooler spells.

I have never kept large spur thighs indoors. But I was guessing that they might go into a similar quiet spell indoors as I see outdoors, if the room is somewhat cooler and not as bright as what they were used to outside. I think you could also extend the spring and fall outdoor time by constructing some sort of plastic "greenhouse" or "cold frame" basking area within their outdoor pen. On sunny days when it only gets in the '50s and '60s, I bet a sunny area with a plastic covered frame would get really warm and toasty during the day.

But I can't say much about indoor keeping of them - some of the northern forum members can probably comment better about that than I can.

Huh, I never thought about it that way. This isn't my first tort, but I love all of the information you gave me! Maybe I'll reconsider buying them at all. Hm. I've been reading up the past few months about them, but none made me consider the raising hatchling fact.

I'm glad the information was helpful to you. Yes, hatchlings can be terribly difficult to raise, but, if you get a healthy, well-started hatchling, and know how to raise them properly, it's much, much easier to raise them with success.

Kathy, that's interesting information. Sulcatas are not a naturally hibernating species, as their native habitat never gets so cold, so, while they do go "dormant" and evidently do well with it, it's not something I would imagine is safe to purposely replicate for the sole purpose of making the tortoise lethargic enough not to destroy a bedroom. Hence, in such a cool climate as Amanda's, it would be easier and safer for the tortoise to simply put up a good heated shed for the Sulcata to call home year-round... As opposed to converting a bedroom and risking both an unhappy tort and some big sheetrock repairs.

I've never personally experienced such a large tortoise as an adult Sulcata, just heard tales of their destructive capabilities (the threads on Tortoiseforum by Maggie3fan about her 80 lb sullie, Bob, are especially a hoot!).. But after watching the local pet store's 20-30 lb Sulcata "store pets" move large glass display cases several inches without a second thought, you start to get an idea of just how true those stories are! And those aren't even well-cared-for tortoises.. It's almost frightening to imagine the strength of a healthy Sulcata of the same size, let alone a fully-grown one.

There was a really good post on here by Troy (DeadMouse) about his sulcatta. You might PM him and see if he can find the thread and bump it for all to read. It is an eye-opening account of how a tortoise like that can change your life, how you have to plan everything around it.