Appropriate Housing for hatchling sulcata

[Vegasarah]

Hey everyone, I would like some opinions about housing my hatchling sulcata. He is currently 3 inches in diameter and my best guess is that he is about 7 to 10 months old.

I currently have him in an ' under the bed ' type rubbermaid bin in my kitchen, it is 16x35 inches. That is working great for me, but I'm facing a serious housing downsize in my life.

What would you all recommend is the smallest recommended size for a tortoise of his age and size? This will be a temporary situation (six months to a year) but I don't want him to suffer or be unhappy. Would a 18x12 be too small?

I do plan on building my own enclosure within the next year, after I get settled I my new house.

I would really appreciate as much feed back as possible, thanks so much!

 

[CourtneyAndCarl]

I hate to say this, but if you are downsizing so much that you can't do a large rubbermaid container enclosure, how will you plan on housing a 150 pound sulcata? Maybe you should consider rehoming him now when he's still small and highly adoptable.

You should never EVER think "what is the smallest I can get away with" but it should always be "what is the largest I can fit in" and that's obviously dependant on your living arrangements.

 

[mctlong]

No, 18" x 12" is too small. As a rule of thumb, the smallest temporary enclosure for a tortoise should be at least 1 square foot per inch of tortoise. So a 3" tortoise will need a space of at least 36"x12" (i.e. 3ft x 1ft). However, your tort will be growing in the 6 months to a year before you move. So, if your tort doubles in size in that time, your minimum temporary enclosure will need to be 6 square feet, which would be about 36" x 24" (i.e. 3ft x 2ft). These are minimum measurements and assume that you will be bringing your tort outdoors daily for exercise and grazing/sunshine time.

 

[Laura]

what you have it in is small. you cant go much smaller.. and in a year, it will be way too small... one day at a time... or find a friend to house for you?

 

[Tom]

I think your current enclosure is too small. Does he have an outdoor enclosure to run around in? None of us know what your situation is, but you need to be thinking in much larger terms for your growing baby.

 

[Vegasarah]

Thank you all for the feed back.

I will (and currently have) a large back yard, but I currently am going to school in las vegas, so it is much too dry and hot to house him outside. Today it is 108° and less that 10% humidity! I do bring him outside daily when its early in the morning and still cooler, I have a baby pool full of coconut fiber that is nice and moist so he doesn't dry out. There are two hides and a water dish as well, but he likes to bask on the little slab of tile pretty much the whole time! He is out there about an hour a day. I watch him very closely and have a digital thermometer to keep him safe in the heat. That was going to continue to be my plan for when I move into my new place, but see if I could keep him in something smaller for that short time.

When he is inside he is in the rubbermaid. I could possibly just go ahead and build my tort table now, before I move... it will be built into the base of my blue tongues tank. It is an 130 gallon tank (79 x 18 x 22) with a matching base that I was going to sort of 'convert' into a tort table. I'm just really broke right now because of school... But it would be do-able I think. What are you guy's opinion on that being a good idea? I will attach the only picture I have of my blue tongue's tank, hopefully it will give you an idea of what my plan is. If not I will take more pictures tonight to help.

In two years I will be moving to San Diego, CA for school/ to work in my career. There he will be able to live outside full time in a green, spacious back yard! So I don't want to re-home him now, because I am going to be able to house him outdoors when the time comes.

I really appreciate all the feedback, I am new to torts and now realize that what I wanted to keep him in is WAY too small. Thanks guy! Hope to hear back from you all soon! -Vegas Sarah

 

[wellington]

Check out the threads below. Great info for raising a hatchling sulcata.

 

[Vegasarah]

Thank you for those great links. I am going to build a 'closed chamber' table for sure, now! I know some people say that glass/ plexiglass is BAD for torts, but then on that link I saw that most of the enclosures are part or entirely glass... I would prefer to at least do the front in plexiglass so I can see in and he can see out. If need be I guess I could always just tape something to the glass if it stressed him out and he tried to 'walk through it'...

Also, would the 79x18 be okay till i move to San Diego? It will be pretty much exactly two years from now.

 

[TylerStewart]

I will (and currently have) a large back yard, but I currently am going to school in las vegas, so it is much too dry and hot to house him outside. Today it is 108° and less that 10% humidity!

Psst.... I'm in Vegas, and we currently have dozens of baby sulcatas housed outside full time. With enough shade and water, their shell temps don't break 90 degrees. Humidity where they hang out is 60%+ (at the root ball of plants and in their hideboxes). The problem with them being in Vegas is that people put them in a plastic bin on their patio on concrete that is 140 degrees, and they think that because it's under a patio cover shade that their tort isn't being cooked. They can only be outside if they are kept in an area that is always moistened and heavily shaded (we have 80% shade cover over them, and a sprinkler that hits their cage 4 times a day for 60 seconds, right now). Cages are heavily planted and lots of plywood hideboxes about 3" off the soil. Anything within 12" of the soil in the cage isn't above 90 degrees ever. Evaporative cooling (from the soil) works great with our 5% normal humidity.

Below is one of our cages, as an example. You can't really tell, but there's shade cover over the entire area (we use 80% mostly, and it's up about 8-9 feet off the ground). Nothing in this cage that is within a foot of the ground breaks 90 degrees even when it's 110-115 outside. This pic was a week ago with some smaller radiated tortoises in it. I would never let them get to 110-115, but they are doing great in these conditions (and sulcatas can handle hotter). I pull these out of the hides at 3 and 4 PM all the time and check their shell surface temperatures (with a TempGun), and they are usually in the high 70s (torts that are in the hide). The torts out in the open are usually in the mid 80s.

 

[Jacqui]

Psst.... I'm in Vegas, and we currently have dozens of baby sulcatas housed outside full time. With enough shade and water, their shell temps don't break 90 degrees. ....

Below is one of our cages, as an example....

Thanks so much for sharing this! A great reminder to folks what you can actually accomplish with a some thought and work to make even a less the ideal seeming environment work for you.

 

[Vegasarah]

Thats interesting tyler, I would think it would just get too damn hot here for him to be out there all day. How do you make sure the sprinklers go off that many times a day? I have a soaker hose around the outside edge of the kiddie pool, but I have to manually turn it on and off. Maybe I could just bring him inside at night or when it gets over 100 or under 70. Hes so little I would be so paranoid leaving him outside all day and night because hes so little and everything. I don't think I could rest easy at night! Lol. Plus we have cyotes that can (and do) get into my yard and those guys are crafty, they can get through even the safest enclosure. I would be so nervous that he would dry out if I was away from the house... I will still build my tort table and maybe with your help I can allow him to stay outside more than just an hour a day.

---

Also, I am trying to stop the pyramiding that was caused by his previous owner. So again, I'm downright paranoid about his humidity levels.

 

[TylerStewart]

Thats interesting tyler, I would think it would just get too damn hot here for him to be out there all day. How do you make sure the sprinklers go off that many times a day? I have a soaker hose around the outside edge of the kiddie pool, but I have to manually turn it on and off. Maybe I could just bring him inside at night or when it gets over 100 or under 70. Hes so little I would be so paranoid leaving him outside all day and night because hes so little and everything. I don't think I could rest easy at night! Lol. Plus we have cyotes that can (and do) get into my yard and those guys are crafty, they can get through even the safest enclosure. I would be so nervous that he would dry out if I was away from the house... I will still build my tort table and maybe with your help I can allow him to stay outside more than just an hour a day.

---

Also, I am trying to stop the pyramiding that was caused by his previous owner. So again, I'm downright paranoid about his humidity levels.

---

It does feel hot, especially the last few weeks with the added humidity, but go lay down on some moist dirt or grass somewhere and you'll see the difference. You can take a temp gun to grass within a few hours of the sprinklers going off anywhere in Vegas and stick it down into the grass in direct sunlight when it's 110 outside and it'll tell you the temperature is 75 or 85 degrees. Just use this idea and build it into an enclosure and the same effect works great. It's hard to make it work in anything above ground.... You need them to be on the ground and sometimes in the ground (we have some underground hides that work great also). Just about any sprinkler timer can be set to run 4 times a day for 1 minute. We have added some timers that do different things in different areas, but it's pretty simple. They make timers that you can put on a hose and just leave the hose on (saw them today at Star Nursery), and the timer will let water spray when you want it to spray. Even the cheap sprinklers that you attach with a hose can work just fine; doesn't need to be a permanent sprinkler. The soaker hoses work ok, but spray overhead works better. It is better at alerting the torts to water and covers the whole area better.

Coyotes? Where in Vegas do you live? We are at the far edge of town, but coyotes never wander in to my area, and everything in Vegas has 6'-7' block walls around it LOL....

That pyramiding is going to be hard to reverse.... Once it starts, it is hard to stop. Like Neal said, if you even had the option of getting your money back, I would really consider it. You'd be better off to buy one that is started smooth from Tom or someone that knows what they're doing. If they are kept well and smooth the first few months, they are so much more likely to stay smooth forever.

 

[Vegasarah]

Okay, I never thought about pointing my temp gun at the ground right after I spray or anything like that, I will see where I'm getting reads at. I will try the sprinkler timer, I never knew they made ones like that!

I don't want to return or rehome Squirt, but I might get another (smaller adult size lol) tort some day from one of the great people on here. I know the pyramiding might be a lost cause, but I'm going to try and right it all the same.

I live in the Northwest, my house runs up against the mountains and we also have a cinder block wall, but it has a gate that leads right out to the desert. They can walk right through the bars or the rabbits dug under the gate so they can get in that way too. Rabbits, quail, stray cats, coyotes, I get them all. I don't mind one bit, I like that my backyard is a little safe haven for all those animals. I have two dogs who are not prey aggressive at all and just like to watch the animals go by, they even found a baby bunny one time so young that it didn't run away and they just sniffed it and walked away lol.

 

[TylerStewart]

Okay, I never thought about pointing my temp gun at the ground right after I spray or anything like that, I will see where I'm getting reads at. I will try the sprinkler timer, I never knew they made ones like that!

I don't want to return or rehome Squirt, but I might get another (smaller adult size lol) tort some day from one of the great people on here. I know the pyramiding might be a lost cause, but I'm going to try and right it all the same.

I live in the Northwest, my house runs up against the mountains and we also have a cinder block wall, but it has a gate that leads right out to the desert. They can walk right through the bars or the rabbits dug under the gate so they can get in that way too. Rabbits, quail, stray cats, coyotes, I get them all. I don't mind one bit, I like that my backyard is a little safe haven for all those animals. I have two dogs who are not prey aggressive at all and just like to watch the animals go by, they even found a baby bunny one time so young that it didn't run away and they just sniffed it and walked away lol.

I saw the timers at the Star Nursery over on West Cheyenne (just West of the 95). We are out in the NW also. I bet I'm more Northwest than you

We can loan you a dog to keep the coyotes away

 

[Vegasarah]

I don't mind the coyotes, they are rare and kind of cool. They don't do anything to me, and I don't let my dogs out there at night. When I let them out to go potty I always go with them haha. I live on Ann and Grand Canyon! I'm right up against the Lone Mountain/ Desert.

Do you know anything about 'adopting' a desert tortoise? I know they are looking for people with big 'desert landscaped' backyards that can dig out a burrow... I mean, it would only be for two years, but it would be cool

Power bill was really high this month, so my tort table is going on hold till next month. I want to start it asap. Does everyone think the 79x18 would be okay for his first two and a half years of life?

 

[TylerStewart]

I don't mind the coyotes, they are rare and kind of cool. They don't do anything to me, and I don't let my dogs out there at night. When I let them out to go potty I always go with them haha. I live on Ann and Grand Canyon! I'm right up against the Lone Mountain/ Desert.

Do you know anything about 'adopting' a desert tortoise? I know they are looking for people with big 'desert landscaped' backyards that can dig out a burrow... I mean, it would only be for two years, but it would be cool

Oh ok, I grew up near Ann and Durango (from 1991 thru 1999). As the city expanded and after college, I fled North and now am at the North end of Durango (near Tule Springs Park). The city is catching up to me again, so in a year or two we are moving directly West to the base of Mt Charleston. I should be able to grow old and die out there before the city catches up

There's a group here called "The Tortoise Group" that adopts out desert tortoises, but they'll probably only adopt you a lone male, and if they knew you were leaving in 2 years, they probably wouldn't do it at all. Not sure if they'd care that you had a sulcata, either, but I would guess it'd be another red flag (don't want the sulcata eventually beating up the DT).

For your power bill, get that tort outside! Then you don't need lights running... You could spend $100-200 and make a sweet outdoor cage that will last you till November (that's when we bring them in). In the winter, you can take it inside when your A/C isn't running as much and the power bill would be much lower. Water isn't all that much here.... I feel like we use a lot of water (laundry never stops running here with 4 kids), and my bill is usually no more than $40.

Coyotes are very non-confrontational.... I doubt they'd hurt your dogs even if they were smaller dogs. Their first instinct at anything is RUN! I do know of them getting into a friend's place in Phoenix and chewing up small tortoises, though.

 

[Vegasarah]

It's not just the tort that uses a heat lamp, though... I have 6 other reptiles that suck up heat... I really should make them their own pens where they can at least chill out for part of the day outside. I have mostly desert breeds so that might work out well... It's like a vicious cycle! I have the air on because it's hot from the lights, I have the lights on because it's too cold in my house from the AC for the reptiles. I wish I was cold blooded haha that would solve so many problems!

Do you have any indoor encolsures? How do you house your guys indoors when it gets too cold?