Help! Hatchling Leopard Tortoise Substrate...hmm

[Padme]

Hey! We recently purchased a hatchling leopard tortoise and are having issues with substrate. She is probably about 10 weeks old. I have a lot of experience with reptiles; we have 3 water turtles and chameleons. The pet store we got her from reccomended alfalfa pellets for bedding but she has a small water dish that she enjoys bathing in and the alfalfa molds every 6 hours due to the temperatures and moisture. I am obviously not comfortable with the air quality due to the mold and also read that alfalfa can be bad for hatchlings feets aside from their lungs and shells. So! I researched and found that a 50/50 or 70/30 sand & loam mixture is best, I happen to use the same for the chameleons laying area. That being said...I filled her tank with it today and she wants nothing more than to eat it!!! I fed her plenty, she's had dandelion greens and pellets, but mannn does she want to eat sand and dirt.

Will this hurt her? What substrate do you all reccomend? I am worried about impaction.

I covered the 1/3 of the tank that has her water dish with timothy hay (she wants to eat the sand there most), then a put a very thin layer of alfalfa around the dish her food goes on and where her little house is, another 1/3 of the tank, and the final 1/3 is the loam mixture.

She is very young, could this be a reason why she cannot handle the mixture? Or is something better for hatchlings?

Thanks for your help! This is my first tortoise and I intend on her living longer than me!

 

[Tim/Robin]

We have had great success with keeping hatchlings on paper towels. Not the prettiest, but easy to clean and they don't ever really eat it. We have kept Eastern Hermanns, Golden Greeks, Egyptians, and Pancake hatchlings, to mention a few, on it with no issues at all.

 

[Padme]

That is a good idea, I was worried to use something like that but it is definitely worth a try if it works for you and your little babies don't eat it. At what age do you move them to a different substrate and then at that point what do you use?

 

[Yvonne G]

You were right to remove the alfalfa pellets. They are too dry for growing babies and they are hard for them to walk on, sometimes causing leg problems. This is a four year old leopard that I raised on oat hay pellets from the time she was hatched. You can see that at 4 she's quite pyramided:

Do you moisten the new substrate? If its wet does she still eat it?

I like to keep my babies on either fine grade orchid bark or cypress mulch. You can keep both of those moist and they don't mold or sour.

The reason you want a little moisture in the substrate is to help keep the tortoise from pyramiding. You wet it down good, then the lights quickly dry out the top layer, leaving it moist underneath.

We are now leaning towards humidity, diet, lighting and exercise as being necessary to grow smooth carapaces.

Yvonne

 

[Tim/Robin]

That is a good idea, I was worried to use something like that but it is definitely worth a try if it works for you and your little babies don't eat it. At what age do you move them to a different substrate and then at that point what do you use?

We kept most of the hatchlings on it until they were around 6 months old. Then they get moved to aspen. We slightly misted their area under the heat lamp daily and provided daily soaks as well. They all have smooth growth. We still mist the aspen several times a week, just a misting don't soak it. We have never seen any mold in the aspen.

 

[tortoisenerd]

Hmm I didn't know you could mist aspen. Interesting. I do wonder though if all the species you mentioned are less susceptible to pyramiding than Leopards and Sulcatas for example?

I would try other moist substrate (like orchid bark or cypress mulch as recommended above) to see if the tort tries to eat them before switching to a dry substrate, and especially paper towels. Do Leopards like to dig? My tort was miserable on paper towels and loves his aspen. The moist substrate was not for us as we live in a damp climate; he was too cold.

A picture of the enclosure would be very helpful. Welcome to the forum!