New Angulate Owner

Kim Ogden

New Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2017
Messages
2
Location (City and/or State)
Western Cape, South Africa
Hi everyone! I was recently given an Angulate hatchling from a man I met through some friends. he has 2 Angulates of his own (male and female) that he keeps in an outdoor enclosure permanently and 2 weeks ago he found a hatchling in the enclosure! He admitted to me that he actually has no experience with hatchlings as he got his torts when they were 8 and 10 years old and this is the first time anything like this has ever happened to him. I have experience raising reptiles as I used to breed with bearded dragons but have never owned a tortoise before. when I got the hatchling he was covered in ticks and it took me 2 days (and a lot of patience) to remove them all. i have already applied betidine (an anti septic) to the areas that i removed the ticks from, is there anything else i can use or do to help further prevent sickness? I have built a box with a 6w t5 UVB light and have an ordinary 60w house light for heat. I use soft sand as substrate and have been soaking the hatchling every 2 days. i am fortunate enough to live in the west coast of south africa right on the beach and most of the Angulates natural food grows in my garden, because of this i have been feeding the hatchling a variety of natural food everyday fresh from my garden. I have done a ton of research on Angulates but still have a few questions...
First, i want to build an outdoor enclosure for the hatchling but i am afraid that he may be too young? I am also a little scared to leave him outside all day without supervision as we have a problem with snakes in the area and my next door neighbors have a family of wild mongoose that live under their porch (my poor cat has already had a few run ins with them) so should i wait until he is a little older? And should i still keep an indoor enclosure for night time or particularly cold days after i have moved him outside?
Should i be adding fruit and veg or calcium powder to his diet?
Any other advise you may have will really be appreciated. Sorry for the long post and thank you for your patience.
P.S. I know that i need a permit if I want to keep the hatchling and have already started the application process.
 

Tom

The Dog Trainer
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 9, 2010
Messages
63,264
Location (City and/or State)
Southern California
Hello and welcome!

PLEASE POST PICS!!! This is one of my favorite species, but there are very few of them here. As common as they are in in the RSA, I've only seen a few of them here. I spent about four months all over the Capetown area back in 2005 and I saw 100's of your "Bowsprits".

So, few people here have any experience with them. I've had great success raising your variety of leopard tortoises here using the following methods, and I can't imagine they wouldn't work well for an angulated tortoise too. Babies need hydration and even when things seem dry in the wild, babies have to find little pockets of humidity, or they die. Most of them die. In captivity, we try to give them their optimal conditions in the hopes we can get better survival rates than what happens in the wild.

Check these out:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/beginner-mistakes.45180/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-raise-a-healthy-sulcata-or-leopard-version-2-0.79895/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-incubate-eggs-and-start-hatchlings.124266/

One thing that I've discovered through much trial and error and side-by-side experiments with clutch mates, is that babies of all species do much better when started indoors. I give short excursions to the great outdoors for sunshine, grazing and exercise, but they spend the majority of their time indoors until they get a little bigger. The other important detail is that babies NEED hydration. They should be soaked daily.

Sand is a huge impaction risk and potential skin and eye irritant. I would remove that ASAP.

No fruit in the diet. Its not good for them. Sounds like you already know what to feed and have lots of good options there. Skip the text of this thread and go to the list of foods for more feeding ideas: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/for-those-who-have-a-young-sulcata.76744/page-17#post-1518869

Please ask more questions, and seriously, we'd all love to see lots of pics. I want to see the plastron too. How much red is there on your baby?
 

Kim Ogden

New Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2017
Messages
2
Location (City and/or State)
Western Cape, South Africa
Thank you so much for all your help! Sorry for the delayed reply but have been following your advice and over all the little one seems much happier. I think its a girl but I'm not sure... Thank you Tom for your advice it has helped me a lot. Managed to get rid of the ticks using tick and flea dip for kittens and within 2 days they started falling off. She seems to be very active and im wondering if the box i built is too small?

Don't know how common these little guys are anymore as we have been suffering a severe drought for many years and it has wiped out a lot of our indigenous populations :(

I've attached some pics of my baby (sorry for the bad quality i took them from my phone) her colors seem to be becoming more and more vivid by the day, i wonder if colors develop as they grow?
 

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Tidgy's Dad

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
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Location (City and/or State)
Fes, Morocco
Hello, Kim, and a very warm welcome to Tortoise Forum. :)
Very pretty little tortoise.
 

Tom

The Dog Trainer
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 9, 2010
Messages
63,264
Location (City and/or State)
Southern California
Thank you so much for all your help! Sorry for the delayed reply but have been following your advice and over all the little one seems much happier. I think its a girl but I'm not sure... Thank you Tom for your advice it has helped me a lot. Managed to get rid of the ticks using tick and flea dip for kittens and within 2 days they started falling off. She seems to be very active and im wondering if the box i built is too small?

Don't know how common these little guys are anymore as we have been suffering a severe drought for many years and it has wiped out a lot of our indigenous populations :(

I've attached some pics of my baby (sorry for the bad quality i took them from my phone) her colors seem to be becoming more and more vivid by the day, i wonder if colors develop as they grow?

SOOOOOO GORGEOUS! Thank you for the pics! You can post as many pics as you want and you'll have some happy American tortoise keepers over here. Probably elsewhere too! :)

Glad to hear things are going better.

If you feel like the box is too small, it probably is. I'd try for something about 2 meters long and one meter wide for a baby like this. They need room to walk around a bit. It helps with digestion and also makes it easier to have a thermal gradient in the enclosure, so the tortoise can move in and out of the warmth as needed. You should see improved activity and appetite as your weather continues to warm up over there.
 

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