Hello, Some Questions From Texas

[Camp Crush]

Hello,
I've been wondering, do tortoises poop and urinate in their heated house? Or is it mainly for shelter and warmth? Also will a sulcata destroy my yard? Will it eat up all the grass to dirt?
Thank you!

 

[Tom]

Hello,
I've been wondering, do tortoises poop and urinate in their heated house? Or is it mainly for shelter and warmth? Also will a sulcata destroy my yard? Will it eat up all the grass to dirt?
Thank you!

1. Yes. They poop and pee anywhere and everywhere whenever they feel like it. This is often in their heated night houses.
2. The heated house functions as their "burrow" in our foreign land.
3. and 4. Yes. Any sulcata is likely to demolish a yard, unless you take certain precautions. It also depends on how large of an area it is and how much other stuff there is to eat. In winter we get our rain here and all the weeds and grasses sprout. My tortoises can't eat it all, and their appetites are lower with the cooler weather and shorter days, so the weeds and grass outgrow them. In warmer weather, all our weeds die off, and their appetites pick up. So the answer to this question depends mostly on the size of your tortoise, the size of your yard, your climate and location, the season , the current weather, how you house your tortoise, how much other stuff you feed your tortoise, and your tortoises individual personality.

Your welcome!

 

[Markw84]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.

-A tortoise will definitely poop in their heated house. You can count on that and count on making provisions to regularly clean it out.
-Tortoises do not urinate. They either release extra water when well hydrated or scared. It is not urine. As far as urates your tortoise will expel a white sour cream like substance either by itself or with some poop. That is it's way of dealing with "urine" without having to sacrifice precious water.
-A heated house, or "night box" is for shelter from the elements and actually becomes your tortoise's burrow.
- It must be thermostatically heated to provide adequate heat whenever the temperatures dip too low.
-A sulcata can bulldoze and pretty well destroy anything in its enclosure. You have to plan accordingly. IT will move lawn furniture, push over pots, etc, etc.
- Unless given enough area, it will eat the grass to the point of losing the lawn. However, in a large enough enclosure and with supplemented food like orchard grass hay always available, I have always been able to maintain the grass in my sulcatas enclosure.

 

[Markw84]

@Tom hit post before I was finished typing! I guess we were literally and figuratively on the same page!

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

Hi

 

[Camp Crush]

Thank you everyone, for all the help and great advice.