New owner of a baby sulcata tortoise

[Chelsie Pemberton]

75 in the shaded cool spot is too low.

25% humidity is much too low.

Read the care sheet…

Your baby does not have time for you to figure this out the hard way.

Well I got the humidity level
Way up by enclosing the tank. I'm sorry for all the questions. I have read the care sheet and I have it all set up now. Bought two more thermostats to keep proper temps at all spots. Will continue daily soaks and random misting. Thank you again.

 

[Fredkas]

(Be patient reading this, english is not my native language)
My country have a high humidity, hover around 60%. If not all, it is 90% of tort keeper using dry method for their tort especially sulcata, they think sulcata will get URI if wet. "Sulcata hate water, avoid it." Something like that.
Lucky me i found this forum, still if people at my country know how i am raising my tort, they will assume me as a newbie who doesn't know even a single think about sulcata and my tort will eventually get sick soon enough.
By looking at this fact you can be sure all the tort here started dry. You know what the good seller told me before?
They said (thank you to the sellers that being kind to potential customer, it is sad no one know how to raise a good baby sulcata), "you haven't keep tort at all? Then don't buy a hatchling especially sulcata 90% of them died, buy a bigger one. Even an expert can't avoid this died pattern. They just died."
What in my mind was if all of the sulcata raised dry, then i need a hatchling to minimalize all the effect of started dry (deposit of bladder stone).
I got my tiny hatchling approx 3 months old at 57gr. He is cute, and yes pyramiding in his first barely grow growth line. I am very excited and post a picture of him here, no surprise members told me directly that he was having pyramiding in his shell. 3months old at 57gr is not good. Second day with me, he was 62gr which i believe is the gaining from the soaking water. This baby needs a nice warm soak.
62gr stunted for a month, no gaining at all. Hovering around 60 to 62gr. Then he decided to grow. Now he is a happy baby with zero pyramiding except the slight pyramiding he had in his early life.
I have him for 4 months now. A month stunted, other 3 months he keeps growing. Now 130gr. Yipeeee... btw, he eats like a pig now.
By sharing this, i am gonna tell you, your little one is still hatchling, hopefully the damage is still manageable. What can you do is applying all of the care sheet thoroughly. You do your part giving the best environment, the rest is for the tort to fight. Good luck!!!

 

[Chelsie Pemberton]

75 in the shaded cool spot is too low.

25% humidity is much too low.

Read the care sheet…

Your baby does not have time for you to figure this out the hard way.

So I have my temps all right and have been feeding stuff from the yard. Soaking and spraying and so far so good. My baby is active and looks good.
But I do have two questions. I enclosed almost all of the enclosure and get the humidity at 60. -70% I read the 80%. Is their a variable for that. It seems to never go above that range. My second question is that I have a tub that I cut out an opening for my baby and it never goes in their. It digs in the corner of the tank and sleeps in the little burrow it makes. Is this fine that it never goes in their?

 

[Big Charlie]

So I have my temps all right and have been feeding stuff from the yard. Soaking and spraying and so far so good. My baby is active and looks good.
But I do have two questions. I enclosed almost all of the enclosure and get the humidity at 60. -70% I read the 80%. Is their a variable for that. It seems to never go above that range. My second question is that I have a tub that I cut out an opening for my baby and it never goes in their. It digs in the corner of the tank and sleeps in the little burrow it makes. Is this fine that it never goes in their?

It is natural for them to dig. I think it is fine for her to sleep there. They are creatures of habit so once they get used to something, they stick with it. If you put the tub in the corner she usually sleeps in, she might get used to using it.

 

[Fredkas]

Some people try to put the tort inside the humid hide every night, after a while the tort will go to humid jide all by themselves. Maybe you could try that

 

[JoesMum]

When my tort decides he prefers to sleep in what I consider to be the wrong place, I have to wait until he's cooled down before moving him. Otherwise he just moves straight back.

It took around 3 months to get him to use his cold frame voluntarily overnight.

 

[Tom]

So I have my temps all right and have been feeding stuff from the yard. Soaking and spraying and so far so good. My baby is active and looks good.
But I do have two questions. I enclosed almost all of the enclosure and get the humidity at 60. -70% I read the 80%. Is their a variable for that. It seems to never go above that range. My second question is that I have a tub that I cut out an opening for my baby and it never goes in their. It digs in the corner of the tank and sleeps in the little burrow it makes. Is this fine that it never goes in their?

Unlike other species, sulcata babies seem to have an aversion to any sort of hole in the ground, or in our case an artificial hide. My best guess is that they wish to avoid the creature that made the hole so they don't get eaten. It takes time for them to realize that the new "home" is n occupied and that they can move in and make it their home. I put them in the humid hide after its been dark for a little while and they've gone to sleep. Usually after a few days of waking up in the hide, and not being eaten by any monsters, they realize the hide is a safe place.

If your humidity is staying too low, its because there is too much ventilation. Too much cooler drier room air is mixing with your warmer humid air in the enclosure. Physics. The solution is to buy or build a closed chamber so you can create a little slice of tortoise heaven for your baby.