Shelldons_mama
Member
Hi everyone it has been a long time since I posted on here but we helped our cousin rescue this Sulcata tortoise from a “friend” of hers and he was in AWFUL condition. We believe he is super under weight and has yet to poop which is a little alarming.
He was being kept in a small a*! broom closet and only being fed romaine or iceberg lettuce “maybe once a month” which infuriated me so we had to take him. And he was getting no soaks maybe rinsed off with a hose when it was nice enough outside for that. When I tell you I have this man an earful I don’t think he liked me very much when we were done.
Mind you we live in upstate NY so an outdoor enclosure isn’t always an option for us but it was no excuse for the conditions this poor boy was in.
ANYWAYS, he is about 15yrs old and about 20 pounds. Which seems way too small to me we are going to set up a vet appointment for him because I have an amazing tortoise vet that will help us but I wanted to see what advice y’all could give us.
We have been feeding him a mix of leafy greens(dandelion, collard, mustard) some cucumber, he loves strawberries(in moderation of course) he seems excited when we feed him now. We are doing everyday feeding to see if we can get him to a correct weight. Which is another reason I’m alarmed about him not pooping.
Right now we have him in a 6x8 foot wooden enclosure with a mix of repti sand coco coir, and some reptile safe mulch For his flooring, 2 ceramic heat emitters, and a 6’ bar light with a reptisun t8 light in it. Our dad is currently building him a hide we wanted to see how big he actually was before we did that part because if we made it too small we would have felt silly. The picture I have attached was before we put the big bar light in so it’s not a perfect representation of what we have now. Just the skeleton of his cage basically.
We do plan on building him a 12ft^2 enclosure when it gets warmer up here.
We gave him a bath yesterday and I literally scrubbed layers of dirt dust and **** from the babies shell (no shell rot though) :,(
He has perked up so much in the week that we have had him dances for scratches where before he was just hissing and throwing himself into the corners of his cage to get away from us. He is very strong. And has started walking without dragging his shell, I think that was mostly just the change in enclosure.
Alright I’m done rambling, any advice will be appreciated
He was being kept in a small a*! broom closet and only being fed romaine or iceberg lettuce “maybe once a month” which infuriated me so we had to take him. And he was getting no soaks maybe rinsed off with a hose when it was nice enough outside for that. When I tell you I have this man an earful I don’t think he liked me very much when we were done.
Mind you we live in upstate NY so an outdoor enclosure isn’t always an option for us but it was no excuse for the conditions this poor boy was in.
ANYWAYS, he is about 15yrs old and about 20 pounds. Which seems way too small to me we are going to set up a vet appointment for him because I have an amazing tortoise vet that will help us but I wanted to see what advice y’all could give us.
We have been feeding him a mix of leafy greens(dandelion, collard, mustard) some cucumber, he loves strawberries(in moderation of course) he seems excited when we feed him now. We are doing everyday feeding to see if we can get him to a correct weight. Which is another reason I’m alarmed about him not pooping.
Right now we have him in a 6x8 foot wooden enclosure with a mix of repti sand coco coir, and some reptile safe mulch For his flooring, 2 ceramic heat emitters, and a 6’ bar light with a reptisun t8 light in it. Our dad is currently building him a hide we wanted to see how big he actually was before we did that part because if we made it too small we would have felt silly. The picture I have attached was before we put the big bar light in so it’s not a perfect representation of what we have now. Just the skeleton of his cage basically.
We do plan on building him a 12ft^2 enclosure when it gets warmer up here.
We gave him a bath yesterday and I literally scrubbed layers of dirt dust and **** from the babies shell (no shell rot though) :,(
He has perked up so much in the week that we have had him dances for scratches where before he was just hissing and throwing himself into the corners of his cage to get away from us. He is very strong. And has started walking without dragging his shell, I think that was mostly just the change in enclosure.
Alright I’m done rambling, any advice will be appreciated