My First baby Sulcata would love feedback.

[BarryAllen]

I made this enclosure out of wood. It’s 4 feet long, 3 feet wide, and maybe a foot tall. I would like feedback on all these things and whether you think I should change them or not.

Enclosure:

1. Heat lamp, 50w
2. UV lamp in the center
3. Coconut fiber and cypress mulch mix for bedding
4. Adding a thermometer to the enclosure today
5. Lightly spraying the bedding with water in the morning

For care:

1. Walk in the lawn for about 30 minutes a day
2. Soak after the walk for about 20 minutes
3. Food: collard greens, mustard greens, my front yard grass, and weeds

Also, I added air holes in each corner on top of the box—13 holes in each corner. I was wondering if that’s enough air, but at the same time, I open the box quite a few times a day.

 

[Tom]

Hello and welcome.

-Looks like you have the wrong types of bulbs. No spot bulbs and no cfl type UV bulbs for tortoises.

Here is a breakdown of the four heating and lighting essentials:

1. Basking bulb. I use 65 watt incandescent floods from the hardware store. Some people will need bigger, or smaller wattage bulbs. Let your thermometer be your guide. I run them on a timer for about 12 hours and adjust the height to get the correct basking temp under them. I also like to use a flat rock of some sort directly under the bulb. You need to check the temp with a thermometer directly under the bulb and get it to around 95-100F (36-37C).
2. Ambient heat maintenance. I use ceramic heating elements or radiant heat panels set on thermostats to maintain ambient above 80 degrees day and night for tropical species. In most cases you'd only need day heat for a temperate species like Testudo or DT, as long as your house stays above 60F (15-16C) at night. Some people in colder climates or with larger enclosures will need multiple CHEs or RHPs to spread out enough heat.
3. Ambient light. I use LEDs for this purpose. Something in the 5000-6500K color range will look the best. Most bulbs at the store are in the 2500K range and they look yellowish. Strip or screw-in LED bulb types are both fine.
4. UV. If you can get your tortoise outside for an hour 2 or 3 times a week, you won't need indoor UV. In colder climates, get one of the newer HO type fluorescent tubes. Which type will depend on mounting height. 5.0 bulbs make almost no UV. I like the 12% HO bulbs from Arcadia. You need a meter to check this: https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html A good UV bulb only needs to run for 2-3 hours mid day. You need the basking bulb and the ambient lighting to be on at least 12 hours a day.

-Loose in the yard is a recipe for disaster. Make a safe enclosure out there with plenty of shade.
-The tortoise has been housed too dry. The substrate needs to be damp and the humidity needs to be high. The wooden box will mold and rot with this higher moisture level. Spraying the surface does very little. You need to dump water into the substrate. How much water and how often varies with each enclosure and you must go by feel.
-Soak for 30-40 minutes daily.
-Yard grass and weeds of the right types are great. Collards and mustard greens are okay once in a while, but not good to use as regular staples. Use endive or escarole most of the time. Add in other greens for variety like dandelion greens, cilantro, arugula, squash leaves, clover, mulberry and hibiscus leaves, and more.

More info here and questions are welcome:

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