Howdy from my Sulcata!

DWB

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Hello all, my name is Dave, and I have a hatchling Sulcata.

He has been terrorizing my wife and I since 10-10-13. Unlike most of you, I had no knowledge about tortoises whatsoever before I became an owner/caretaker.

Our story: We are in the Inland Empire in Southern California, USA. On 10-9 we had our first substantial rain(1/4") of the season. The next day the rain runoff had formed lots of debris piles in my admittedly messy yard. When walking in my driveway and observing said debris, I noticed a small "pattern" in one of the piles. I inspected closer, picked it up, and I'll be damned, it's a turtle!

About 2 inches long and tucked in tight, that gorgeous shell only nature could produce. While I was mesmerized by this tiny miracle, I realized that we do not have indigenous turtles in my area. So I took it in the house, put it in a box top and gave it a small water dish.

I jumped on my computer and googled "I found a turtle". Among the first results I came across a suggestion to visit a web forum about turtles, not this one. So I read some entries, and quickly found that I needed to determine the species to provide proper care. I had my wife take the photos and post them up(She's the brains etc.) and helpful folks soon determined I had a very young Sulcata tortoise. I questioned the ID, because I thought it much more likely that it was a California Desert Tortoise, which many people in my area found and took home from desert camping trips long ago. But they assured me that it was in fact a Sulcata. So, a Sulcata eh', WHAT WHAT, 200 lbs!!? 100+ years!!!? Reality check time!

OK, so when my head cleared, we really are in a position to care for a giant tortoise(I hope). The more I learned, the more I figured out that My wife and I offered the best chance for a long healthy life, at least the first part of it, for young T. But detailed care for a hatchling was not found by me at that time, and I was freaking out because he wasn't drinking, or doing much of anything. So in my desperation, I started looking for a local turtle vet recommendation, and I stumbled upon a link to the local tortoise society. I shot off a desperation email looking for help, and almost instantly got a reply from the wife of the president of the society, inviting me to bring young T over to their home in a couple of hours for an evaluation.

How awesome is it that an email from an anonymous internet dweller would elicit an invitation to their home! Way more "balls" than I possess! They were the nicest people ever, and I spent a couple hours meeting them and their menagerie including their 150lb Sulcata. They assured me that T was OK and my panic was unwarranted. I was also invited to attend the next local chapter meeting, one week away(We went, and are now members). One pretty young gal gave an excellent presentation about outdoor habitats, then took time to talk to us and pointed us to this forum, for which I will be forever grateful. She also directed us towards Tom's Sulcatas posts, which we have read a couple of times and are using as a "How-To" manual to raise young T.

It took me almost 3 weeks to piece together a proper habitat for a hatchling. I hope I did not permanently harm him by lack of humidity in this critical part of his life, he was getting daily soaks. His current housing is too small, and humidity seems to average 70%, but we are working on it. He finally decided to eat after 3 weeks in captivity, and seems to prefer romaine lettuce, his first meal, over grass and other offerings from our yard. Still trying to establish a proper nutritional regimen, my wife is going to get some Mazuri, minerals and cuttlebone tonight. Our climate allows T to spend time outside sunning almost every day, after which he gets his soak.

Well, that is our very detailed intro. I've been on here reading for a few weeks, and have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and feel I owe it to you all. Today's small milestone is our first observed poop! He's been eating for about a week, so we have been worrying about if all systems are go.

Thanks to all for participating, we really needed the info, Dave and Wendy.
 

Jacqui

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Welcome Wendy and Dave! Do not worry about young T having a bad start, sounds like he had a good one and one with continued betterment. Glad your here!!
 

wellington

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Hello and Welcome:). Would love to see pics, just so we can double a d triple check it is indeed a sulcata. Anyway, below in my post are Toms threads for raising a healthy, smooth sulcata. Even if it did turn out to be a DT, the care in the threads wouldn't hurt him.
 

Yvonne G

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Hi Dave, and welcome to the Forum!!

Did you look around and try to find more babies? The clutch size is quite large and if one baby escaped, probably more did too.
 

DWB

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wellington said:
Hello and Welcome:). Would love to see pics, just so we can double a d triple check it is indeed a sulcata. Anyway, below in my post are Toms threads for raising a healthy, smooth sulcata. Even if it did turn out to be a DT, the care in the threads wouldn't hurt him.

Oh, there WILL be pics! Thanks for the welcome. My wife will have to teach me how to post pictures first.
 

DWB

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Yvonne G said:
Hi Dave, and welcome to the Forum!!

Did you look around and try to find more babies? The clutch size is quite large and if one baby escaped, probably more did too.

Thanks, Yvonne. Yes, we most certainly did(and still do) inspect our yard and the surrounding street area, looking for more babies. We don't know any neighbors that have tortoises and we have ALL predators in our neighborhood. Every leaf or pile of pine needles look like baby turtles when you are scared to death that there are others out there freezing(it does not freeze here) or being eaten.

We are up on a hill above the street, and it would be a long difficult trek for a hatchling, though they do trek quite well. It is great fun trying to speculate how we were gifted with the little guy! Our favorite theory is that he was dropped by either a hawk or owl, both of which patrol our area regularly.
 

DWB

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Jacqui said:
Welcome Wendy and Dave! Do not worry about young T having a bad start, sounds like he had a good one and one with continued betterment. Glad your here!!

Thanks for the welcome and reassurance Jacqui. Love your avatar(?), we are fireworks fanatics!
 

mike taylor

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You broke the rules here on TFO ! :mad: Number one rule pictures number two rule pictures! Ha ha just kidding welcome to the forum !!!
 

T33's Torts

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Re: RE: Howdy from my Sulcata!

mike taylor said:
You broke the rules here on TFO ! :mad: Number one rule pictures number two rule pictures! Ha ha just kidding welcome to the forum !!!

Omg!! Lol!
 

garrybailey

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Congrats on the tortoise, sounds like he found a great home to be in :) I've got a sulcata too and love every minute of having him! Here is a pic of him, his names Timothy :)
 

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Tom

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Hello and welcome. You are in for an amazing ride. Sulcatas are a fantastic species and you are in a great area for them. You are going to spend the next few decades amazed at this new creature. Its pretty cool that this tortoise came to you in this way and that you have taken to learning about it and pursuing knowledge this way.

The daily soaks should help mitigate the effects of an imperfect enclosure and a dry climate for those first few days or weeks.

I sometimes have them hatch out of the ground at my place too, and those ones often tend to be slow starters, so don't worry too much. Our night temps are too cool here in SoCal, and I think that spending those first few nights above ground in the cold really does a number on them. With good temps and hydration, they all seem to do just fine. I don't let mine drop below 80 day or night, and an ambient in the 90s during the day simulates what they would experience in the wild. Even with the high ambient, I still give them a basking lamp and they use it.

The biggest mistake I see people make with these, is they treat them like a desert tortoise or other temperate species and keep them overall too cool. The hatchlings don't go underground, as far as I can tell, and the highs where they come from are near or above 100 degrees every day. They hide out in the thick underbrush. High heat can be desiccating and that is where the humidity, humid hides, damp substrate and daily soaks come in.

Keep offering the different foods. The appetite will come and when it does you will be shocked at how much they can put away. Offering a wide variety of foods now will set them up to eat anything and have a very healthy diet down the road. I pay particular attention to this with my hatchlings, and it has served me very well.

I'm so glad you found us and looking forward to watching your baby grow and thrive.

To post pics go to tinypic.com and upload any size photo. Then simply copy/paste the IMG code into your forum post.
 

DWB

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DWB said:
wellington said:
Hello and Welcome:). Would love to see pics, just so we can double a d triple check it is indeed a sulcata. Anyway, below in my post are Toms threads for raising a healthy, smooth sulcata. Even if it did turn out to be a DT, the care in the threads wouldn't hurt him.

Oh, there WILL be pics! Thanks for the welcome. My wife will have to teach me how to post pictures first.

Here is a couple of shots of the baby sulcata getting a soak (if it works)
 

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sibi

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Oh, Dave and Wendy, the baby is gorgeous! Hi and welcome to the forum. Tom has taught most of us here about raising sullies, including me. Don't you just love that face? I also loved your story and how you found Baby T. Also, I loved reading about your first reaction upon learning how big and how long they live! Hope to see more pics as he grows.
 

Grandpa Turtle 144

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Hello Dave And Wendy welcome to the TFO from AZ . The Calif tort society are great people . And so are the people that have torts in Calif. have a great tort day !
 
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