Meet Alfie, my new baby sulcata tortoise! :)

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Hey everyone,

He's finally here, my sulcata tortoise! I've been doing years of research on this species because I've always wanted one, but thankfully I didn't proceed with the purchase after until I joined this website and learned the correct way to care for them. Here he is guys, meet Alfie!
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Sorry about the crappy pictures and bad angles, never knew it'd be hard to take pictures of the inside of humid enclosure haha. He's from @Lancecham on this forum, really satisfied with what I received. Thanks again, Lance. :)

Props to whoever recommended a humid hide on my other thread, he has used it about six or so times already and he's only been with me for a few hours!
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I'm concerned about a few things, hopefully someone experienced can help me.
1) He doesn't seem to be interested in his food, but I've caught him nibbling on his salad a few times. All he seems to care about is exploring right now, when should I expect him to start devouring his entire plate? He's been nibbling lightly on his cuttle bone and timothy hay that I left in there, something that I heard is rare for tortoises to do, so hopefully that's a good thing. :)
2) He seems to want to escape through the grassy background of the aquarium and has been trying since he got here. Should I be worried about it?


Again, sorry for the bad pictures... I'll get better pictures and videos once he settles in.
 

Tom

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Hi Alfie.

No need to worry. He is in a strange land and trying to get his bearings. He will settle in soon enough. Just make sure all your temperatures are correct day and night, and he should settle in in a few days. Soon he'll be eating so much that you will have a mini panic attack trying to figure out how your going to find enough food to feed him.
 

wellington

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Congrats. He looks good. So does the enclosure. Glad you found this forum first.
 

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Hi Alfie.

No need to worry. He is in a strange land and trying to get his bearings. He will settle in soon enough. Just make sure all your temperatures are correct day and night, and he should settle in in a few days. Soon he'll be eating so much that you will have a mini panic attack trying to figure out how your going to find enough food to feed him.
I hope so! I can't wait until we move into our new house so I can let him graze outside when he's older! :D
Congrats. He looks good. So does the enclosure. Glad you found this forum first.
Thank you! Glad you liked the temporary enclosure, was afraid you guys would be harsh on me for it. :)

I have a question about natural sunlight; summer's coming to an end and the temperature is starting to drop in New York City. The temperature these days range from mid 70s to low 80s, night time and early morning temps are in the 60s. It's starting to get very windy as well... is it too late to take him out for natural sunlight for about two hours a day?

Oh and what do I do with the food in his enclosure in the morning? Leave it there or throw it out and put fresh stuff in?
 

Jbrown

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I would allow your Tortoise to graze everyday...

I work full time but every day at 6pm CST in TX he goes out for 30 minutes and on lunch break I move mine to the sun to better help with the vitamin d... Tom and Yvonne have the most insight I have seen to date... So utilize their feedback to other owners and you'll be successful...

Here's Maximus...

ImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1410305983.779903.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1410306072.579855.jpg
 

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I would allow your Tortoise to graze everyday...

I work full time but every day at 6pm CST in TX he goes out for 30 minutes and on lunch break I move mine to the sun to better help with the vitamin d... Tom and Yvonne have the most insight I have seen to date... So utilize their feedback to other owners and you'll be successful...

Here's Maximus...

View attachment 95298View attachment 95299
Maximus is very pretty. How old is he? I'm going to look into planting grass seeds in Alfie's enclosure soon as I don't have a yard to let him out to yet.
 

Jbrown

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Maximus is 7 weeks old... And the first few days he seemed petrified to be in his glass tank, however i have noticed the more I change things around the more curious he gets. I just ensure that anything that is in one area ( ie. cooling zone or basking ) still remains on that side. I also bough tiles to put down under his basking lamp to ensure it's getting hot enough. No light at night and everyday he sees sun. I'm very protective, and rarely allow him to just roam inside the house... He's still getting acclimated to the daytime hours so my suggestion treat him like a child... Bathe nurture and protect daily, and if he's not being active it's a temp issue or a lack of vitamin D... And I know I'm a new owner but I "stalk" the forum daily for tips and tricks!!!

Have gauges and monitor the temps and humidity and you'll be fine... It's easy to overthink... It's hard to be patient...
Justin Brown
 

Smile

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Hello everyone!

I put in some fresh salad with Mazuri and grassland tortoise diet and Alfie's now chomping away! :D I didn't put any calcium powder on his food this time though, so maybe he doesn't like calcium powder too much? I don't know, I'll try again tomorrow though. He seems to really love his humid hide. In fact, he slept inside of it last night and only came out of it this morning when I turned on his UVB light. Can I leave it on the cool side of his enclosure? I think it may be a little too cool for him if he's going to be in there all night long... the temperature ranges in the high 70s on the cool side at night.
 

Smile

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Soaking time :)
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He looked like he was trying to poop inside his feeding dish and sure enough, he let it out in the warm water after about two minutes. :)

Can't thank Lance enough for this little guy, he's really awesome!
 

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Alfie doesn't seem to care about the Mazuri that Lance gave me or the Grassland Tortoise Diet that I got for him... how do I get him more interested in it? I've seen other hatchling tortoises eat this stuff and they're really good for him, so I'd like to get him on it. He absolutely LOVES the romaine lettuce and radicchio that I give him though, and he seems to nibble on the timothy hay and grass that I left in his cage. Is it OK to raise him on veggies and timothy hay & grass for the first few months of his life, then reintroduce him to stuff like the grassland tortoise diet, mazuri, and grass once he's older? Anyone know where I can get edible flowers from for him? I have a feeling he'll really enjoy them and I can just leave them in his enclosure so he can eat them whenever. Also, just to clarify, I do not plan on giving him romaine lettuce forever... this salad mixture was the only thing I can find the day before I got him and was told it's OK to feed for a short amount of time. The bag is almost finished and I'm gonna go search for healthier veggies once it's done.
 

Maro2Bear

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Smile, just keep intoducing some very moistened Mazuri to your new tort. Since you just received him, he's still exploring and developing a new routine. Like Lance said, very moist and crumble it over and around the greens. He will soon have his head buried in it. Id say mine took a good ten days, maybe more, before seeking out the Mazuri. But now, look out. Yesterday, my wife held out a mazuri pellet for our young Lance sully and he came right over and ate it from her hand. :) attached is a pix of that.image.jpg
 

Smile

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Try putting the Mazuri on top of the food pile of the greens that you are giving him.
Smile, just keep intoducing some very moistened Mazuri to your new tort. Since you just received him, he's still exploring and developing a new routine. Like Lance said, very moist and crumble it over and around the greens. He will soon have his head buried in it. Id say mine took a good ten days, maybe more, before seeking out the Mazuri. But now, look out. Yesterday, my wife held out a mazuri pellet for our young Lance sully and he came right over and ate it from her hand. :) attached is a pix of that.View attachment 95910
Thanks guys. I was hand feeding him this morning and managed to trick him into eating the grassland tortoise diet by putting it on the lettuce, then folding the lettuce up like a taco. I'm going to start doing this everyday and hopefully he starts to like the mazuri and grassland diet. :)
 

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Does anyone know what this is? I found this stuff called baby spring mix and the only reason I bought it is because I often see people feeding it to their baby tortoises. It also looked better than the crappy Iceburg Lettuce mix they had in stock. Just making sure I have the right kind...
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He seems to enjoy it.
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I was also wondering... how often do they empty their food dish? I've had him for about a week and a half and not once have I had an empty bowl... I usually throw whatever is in there out the next day, but this stuff was a bit more expensive to have to buy every 3-4 days or so.
 
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Here he is basking under his MVB :) Turned two months old yesterday, today marks the second week I've had him.
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Just to make sure, these are what tortoise droppings look like, right? They're a bit hard to see, but they're on top of the hay next to the food I left him under his MVB.
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I'm still worried he doesn't eat as much as he's supposed to... his temperature and humidity are perfect so I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Lance told me to try moving his food to the cool side of his enclosure and I did notice that he ate some of it, but it wasn't gone entirely... and it's been there since like Saturday. I just replaced that food with new one and he hasn't shown interest in it yet... I tried hand feeding him today and he took two bites, ate the first one but he gave up and spit out the second one... any tips on how to get him to eat more or am I worrying too much? I find those "droppings" every day in his enclosure, new ones all the time too, so maybe I'm overreacting.
 

bouaboua

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Very nice.......not too worry, he still very young. Don't stress out.
 

Smile

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Very nice.......not too worry, he still very young. Don't stress out.
Thanks. It's just that I'm really attached to the little guy, and it would suck if I lost him because of a mistake I wasn't aware of.

Forgot to mention that he has been flipping himself over lately... total of about 8 times since I've had him. Is he supposed to learn how to flip himself back over or should I help him every time? I've been helping him so far and I let everyone in my house know that he can die if he stays like that for long, so if they find him flipped over they should help him flip himself back.
 

bouaboua

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Thanks. It's just that I'm really attached to the little guy, and it would suck if I lost him because of a mistake I wasn't aware of.

Forgot to mention that he has been flipping himself over lately... total of about 8 times since I've had him. Is he supposed to learn how to flip himself back over or should I help him every time? I've been helping him so far and I let everyone in my house know that he can die if he stays like that for long, so if they find him flipped over they should help him flip himself back.


If you can catching him in the act and find out how and where he getting himself flipping over, you need to remove that object from his enclosure. may be is a stone, maybe is a log or something. I always helping them to flip them back.

And no object like that under the heat lamp that he may flip over when you are not home. I always check on them very often while they are out in the sun for sun bath. I have many baby torts that they are so active under the sun that flip themselves over
 
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