humidity not necessary

[Juan V]

They caan be very deep but still nothing like 90% humidity.

I must say, it could also be possible that wild conditions are worse to raise tortugas than the human conditions we are capable of giving them. Maybe thats the reason why so many torts die in the wild and why some profesional sellers and tom can raise them all . tom do you sell torts?

 

[Abdulla6169]

They caan be very deep but still nothing like 90% humidity.

I must say, it could also be possible that wild conditions are worse to raise tortugas than the human conditions we are capable of giving them. Maybe thats the reason why so many torts die in the wild and why some profesional sellers and tom can raise them all . tom do you sell torts?

Tom sells tortoise. I'd say he's the best in his field.

 

[Juan V]

Tom talks about thomas.i thought they were the same guy. Who is thomas?

 

[Yvonne G]

Tomas (diagne????) is a keeper of tortoises who lives in Africa. He has some sort of sulcata reserve there.

 

[mike taylor]

Well as requested side pictures of my babies . The first picture is Harry found around Dallas Tx where humidity is high . The second picture is Sally found wild in Austin Tx . Hardly no humidity rocky and dry . Which one is prettier you tell me! ? I will keep all of my tortoises like Tom with some tweaks because I live in Houston Tx . Where humidity is higher year round .

 

[mike taylor]

This is one I raised from a baby hatchling using Tom's care sheets . This one I got a few weeks old father's day 2013 .

 

[Dizisdalife]

This is one I raised from a baby hatchling using Tom's care sheets . This one I got a few weeks old father's day 2013 .

Mike, that's a beautiful sulcata. I've probably told you that before. Good, no, great job raising this one.

 

[kball]

Your trying to father mimic the wild version of a tortoises life. Well u no what there not in the wild if they were they wouldn't be in our care. Ours grow up smooth and healthy so stop arguing. Oh and WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE. There r young children on here to better there tortoises lives and don't need to see any cursing. We all have our own methods for raising tortoises but the right ones r based off toms. If u want your tortoises to have pyramiding because u wouldn't listen to the people who have been doing this for years and no what there doing then u just go right ahead. But I strongly advise u and everyone else to go off of toms care sheet if u don't like it then don't use it but don't say we didn't tell u so

 

[FLINTUS]

Tomas (diagne????) is a keeper of tortoises who lives in Africa. He has some sort of sulcata reserve there.

Well, not really just a keeper. He's head-director I think officially- of the African Chelonia Institute, in Dakar, which does a lot of work on sulcatas, kinixys, pardalis, pelusios etc. in their native range.

 

[mike taylor]

Mike, that's a beautiful sulcata. I've probably told you that before. Good, no, great job raising this one.

Thank you and Tom!

 

[FLINTUS]

Your trying to father mimic the wild version of a tortoises life. Well u no what there not in the wild if they were they wouldn't be in our care. Ours grow up smooth and healthy so stop arguing. Oh and WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE. There r young children on here to better there tortoises lives and don't need to see any cursing. We all have our own methods for raising tortoises but the right ones r based off toms. If u want your tortoises to have pyramiding because u wouldn't listen to the people who have been doing this for years and no what there doing then u just go right ahead. But I strongly advise u and everyone else to go off of toms care sheet if u don't like it then don't use it but don't say we didn't tell u so

Tbh, there is often much worse than a asterisked word on here. 'right' is also a very subjective term, both ways have been proven right, WHEN OTHER CONDITIONS are right.
And as I've said before, pyramiding isn't the only sign of ill-health in a tortoise.

 

[Zeko]

For all those raising them without high humidity, I ask once again...

Where is your "smooth" tortoises you raised, to prove your way is "right"? Right now you all seem like trolls, Juan, Flintus and company.

All talk, no go. Either put out or get out and stop doing more harm than good. K, thanks, bye!

 

[Tom]

And these weather stations will be in cities generally, not in the middle of nowhere. A lot of their range will get to 45 or so at night. Meteorologists and geographers generally will tell you that deserts and open savannahs lose a lot of heat at night. No need for speculation on this; It is a fact.

I don't know what the temperatures in wild sulcata territory are at night and neither do you. According to the man who lives there and does know, it does not get down to 45. The desert here? Sure. It gets below freezing here, but sulcatas don't live in the desert here or there, and conditions over there are not the same as they are in other parts of the world. We can both argue this all day, but the truth is that neither of us have stood outside a wild sulcata burrow with a thermometer even a single time, much less all year long, and even if we did, that would not tell us what the temperature is underground down where the tortoises are actually parked underground for the night.

What cannot be argued is the success I have had using the temps and humidity that I recommend, or the success of hundreds of other people all over the globe doing the same thing.

 

[kball]

Tbh, there is often much worse than a asterisked word on here. 'right' is also a very subjective term, both ways have been proven right, WHEN OTHER CONDITIONS are right.
And as I've said before, pyramiding isn't the only sign of ill-health in a tortoise.

For all those raising them without high humidity, I ask once again...


t has been but without humidity there is A LOT less.



Where is your "smooth" tortoises you raised, to prove your way is "right"? Right now you all seem like trolls, Juan, Flintus and company.

All talk, no go. Either put out or get out and stop doing more harm than good. K, thanks, bye!

You r very right

 

[Tom]

I'm not saying your method doesn't work-it evidently does for you-, but I do believe that they can be raised more dry, in a, IMO, more natural environment.

It doesn't just work for me. It works equally well for everyone who does it, and none of us have an overly thick carapace. Not one.

My primary opposition here comes from you labeling my techniques as "unnatural" while you think your speculation about wild conditions somehow qualify as more "natural". I simply don't agree. Everything I know tells me that the conditions I am offering are completely "natural" (natural as in this is how they live in the wild). I don't understand what you don't get. Its hot, wet, rainy and very lush under thickets of vegetation that are more than a meter tall and too thick to get through even with a machete. Have you ever been anywhere with prolonged daily highs over 100 degrees and night time lows in the 80's with frequent rain? Have you ever been to New Orleans or South Florida in summer? Ever been to Phoenix, AZ during a heavy monsoon in August? The conditions in these places are very natural, and based on what I've learned from Tomas and my own "research" these natural conditions are very similar to what hatchling sulcatas experience in the wild.

Flintus, I genuinely like you, and I enjoy our discussions, but I have to respectfully tell you that I don't think you understand the sort of heat and humidity that we are talking about here.

Further, my observations and resounding success with these methods in my own enclosures, and everyone else's success with these same techniques, should be an indicator that these conditions agree with this species of tortoise. You don't get smooth healthy natural looking growth from "unnatural" conditions. In fact all of the "unnatural" growth results that I have obtained all came from following the condtions that you are trying to promote as "natural". If these conditions are natural, why do they produce unnatural growth in captivity?

 

[Tom]

Yes, but what was the rest of your care back then? I would guess it wasn't as good as it is now.

It was nearly identical. The changes that I implemented about 6 years ago have been:
1. Damp substrate instead of dry.
2. Closed chambers instead of open tops to hold in more humidity.
3. Daily soaks instead of weekly.
4. Less outside time for hatchlings and small babies. I used to leave them out all day weather permitting, now I only leave them out for an hour or two at most.
5. 80 all night instead of 70ish.

 

[Tom]

Indeed it is. And do your tortoises not do OK once they are outside?'

No. They don't. They stop growing for a while and their beautiful even steady growth lines all go to hell in a hand basket. I'll have to get you some close up pics. They do great when they are primarily living inside, and my adults seem to do very well also, but young growing tortoises do not do well with the dry air here. I have a tough time with this issue and this is my current biggest problem here. The transition from the correct natural conditions that I give them indoors to the very dry outdoor conditions here cause all sorts of problems. Warm humidified sleeping chambers are helping, but not eliminating the problems entirely.

 

[Tom]

These burrows are not that humid. They cant be! If you could find easily a 90% humid environment in a desert you'd get a f**ck**g rainforest!!

Here you address a common misconception about sulcatas. This misconception is all over this discussion. Why are we talking about deserts? Sulcatas do not live in the desert. They are not desert tortoises. They live in grasslands and on the edge of forests. You need a lot of annual rainfall to sustain seasonal grasslands and forests. Don't get that in a desert.

Further, if outdoor ambient humidity is in the 80-100% range, which it is during the African Rainy Season in the Sahel, why would you think a damp underground burrow would be lower?

 

[Tom]

Tomas (diagne????) is a keeper of tortoises who lives in Africa. He has some sort of sulcata reserve there.

Tomas Diagne is the founder of the African Chelonian Institute and has been studying wild chelonians in Africa for most of his entire life. I'm proud to call him a friend. I met him at the TTPG conference in 2011 while he was there as a presenter. At that point I had already figured out the humidity and hydration thing and how well it worked. What Tomas did was fill in all sorts of blanks for me about the mysteries of what is actually happening in the wild where baby sulcatas hatch. I could not understand why for so many years we attempted to simulate what we incorrectly thought was "natural" (hot and dry) for this "desert" species, and it failed time and time again, yet my humid and hydrated monsoon-style conditions that were supposed to be totally "unnatural" were producing excellent results and healthy thriving babies time and time again. Tomas explained how things really worked over there and related all sorts of personal stories about the wild and his experiences in Africa with this species.

I already knew my methods worked. Tomas helped to better understand WHY they worked, and what was really happening in the wild over there. The very same things we are now discussing in this thread.

 

[Tom]

As I said, I'll try to get some data for you from western Kenya, which is a very different area to Senegal, when I go this summer.

While I am insanely jealous that you are going to Kenya, I can't wait to read and see what you can share with us. I hope you have an excellent trip, a safe trip, and that you get to see all sorts of cool stuff.

I would love to see what sort of temp and humidity readings you will get over there. But even with that, I still want to have temperature and humidity recorders in dozens of sulcata burrows all over their range to decisively end this argument about what does or does not happen in the wild for them. And even if we do somehow eventually do get this data, it will only end the debate about what they endure in the wild. It will not address what does, or what does not work in our captive environments. That question has already been answered with thousands of examples both ways to draw from. Debate and speculation about wild conditions is fun and interesting, but we already know what happens under a variety of care regimes in our typical enclosures. Temps in Western Kenya or sulcata tortoise burrows in Sudan or Senegal will not change that.