My Baby

[LadyKarli]

This is my Sulcata. She is healthy & cute but I am afraid she is not growing. She lives in a kiddie pool filled with hay & hidie holes. She is already more than 1 year old but seems so small! I feed her a regular diet of different lettuces & greens. The occasional strawberry or tomato. She drinks & poops pretty regular. She gets plenty of Florida sunshine. Am I missing anything. Also her bottom shell has some give to it. Should it be like that?? Not really soft just has a bit of give.

 

[Yvonne G]

Welcome to the Forum, Lady Karli!

I think your baby would do better if you removed the hay and gave her a substrate she could dig into. Even dirt from the flower bed would be better than hay.

She's growing smoothly. I can't imagine why she doesn't seem to grow bigger. Have you tried to offer her some Mazuri Tortoise diet? That usually gets them growing.

 

[LadyKarli]

Planning to make her a nice outdoor cage very soon. I have a lot of crows that even eyeball her on the back screened patio so I want to wait till I can make a perfect one. I thought about buying some dirt & grass so she can have a live habitat.

 

[Livingstone]

The give in the shell is normal, nothing to worry about at that size. Change the substrate for coco-coir, and make sure the humidity is good, which being that you live in florida probably goes without saying. Then Lets look at the diet, a good diet consists of many things, I have always thought the diet I am raising livingstone on has been very effective so I tend to recommend it. This is what I use:
1)Dandelion (available at whole foods if you can't find it).
2)turnip greens (also available at grocery stores)
3)kale (again something that can be bought if you can't find it)
4)clover
5)green leaf lettuce (this is fed for hydration)
6)Grape leaves (hard to come by unless you grow them, high in calories, and very very nutritious)
7)mulberry leaves (hard to come by unless you grow them, high in calories, and very very nutritious)
8)Mazuri (commercial tortoise food used by zoos, has quite a bit of protein so will increase growth rate, but needs to be offset with a bit more lettuce to prevent internal issues. Also has vitamins/minerals)

Try incorporating those foods.