Galapagos Update
- Thread starter Pattjunior
- Start date
Nice. Looking good. Thank you for the update!
They are an amazing species. I'd love to see more pics and hear more about care and diet for them.
800-900 grams would be roughly 10 times their hatch weight in their first year. I don't think that is slow. They can certainly grow faster than that, but most zoos barely get them to 200-300 grams in their first year. 1000 grams at 12 months old is nice steady healthy growth, assuming temps, hydration and diet are all good.
Have you grown them faster than that?
No I haven't nor am I considering it. I asked to learn about that ginormous species typical growth wondering if/why it is slower than the Sulcata. I thought it would be proportional to their final size which is ultimately about the weight of a motorcycle. I could not find any other growth data easily online which you provided. That's all.
1000 grams at one year is just about what I get for sulcatas. Sometimes 1200, sometimes 800. A few individuals reached 1400 by their first birthday, but the majority were right around 1000.
Where did you get it? What do you feed it?
I got it from American Reptile Distributors @ about 2-3 weeks old, and it was just over 2". 10 gallon glass tank, dry poop, barely eating, warm enough though. Discovered this forum, started tenting the heat over the lights and keeping humidity up -w- aluminum foil for the first few weeks then made the makeshift closed chamber/tote.
Diet is everything you mentioned early on really. Early on I called Mazuri to discuss diet... For Sulcata they recommended Mazuri small tortoise LS for the first year or until the tortoise can easily eat the larger Mazuri LS so that's what I did and followed their serving directions on the package. Stump was getting so large that in month 7 or so I started a 50/50 mixture of Mazuri small tortoise and regular Mazuri LS. Moistened with hot water every day and not drained. I only added the right amount of water to be absorbed, didn't drain it and added to the top of the greens. Sometimes mixed in.
This is probably key... the greens have always been chopped small so Stump can easily eat. One time I missed a piece of broccoli around month 6 and he started to choke on it until I had to pull it out carefully with tweezers now my wife is paranoid and insists that all food is chopped to the size of the large Mazuri.
I have always set out 4% of body weight indoors. Many times items were untouched at the end of the day but I did it anyway. I would say that 75% of the time and especially after 6 months, the food was gone.
Made a food calculator excel sheet. The 4% of body weight was kept in this strict ratio:
60% mazuri -
20% grass - chopped grass from the yard / occasional weeds / lately dried grass and hay. To my surprise Stump doesn't care and will eat anything on the recognized food dish.
18% greens - endive, escarole, baby bok choi, dandelion greens, collards, romaine, RADICCHIO (favorite)
2% some kale, some brocoli, some cucumber, blueberry, strawberrys that the tortoise found in the yard, etc.
then...
S/he grazes outside weather permitting and eats probably another 1-2% of body weight in weeds / grass.
Oh, also goes out of its way to find bird poop or worms. Like it's the main passion in life and main motivation for exploring. The success rate of finding crap has been surprising.
As you said before... a garbage disposal. Weighed 1499g this morning. We're only 7 days into month 12. Should be about 4lbs @ year 1.
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Also, my wife can point out everything Stump is about to do because they are in the same office all day during the week. She's the one that sees him drink fresh water every day for between 30 seconds and 1 minute when he walks from the doggie bed in the living room by the wood stove, to the food dish in the office and then into his humid tote for the day. This spoiled fricking thing waited for us at the humid tote door when we took it to Florida and went to Disney and got home late. Wanted to go in its doggie bed as the ramp wasn't there.
For the first time last week Stump noticed that its giant was not in the office and followed my wife to the living room to see what the heck was going on. It's no dummy. Follows the god of fresh greens/food.
Bugs her in the office when ready to go outside based on the sunlight in the room. It's ridiculous really.
For the first time last week Stump noticed that its giant was not in the office and followed my wife to the living room to see what the heck was going on. It's no dummy. Follows the god of fresh greens/food.
Bugs her in the office when ready to go outside based on the sunlight in the room. It's ridiculous really.
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