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Hello everyone!
First off, I apologize for the long post. I just want to get everything out in one go. So my girlfriend and I recently adopted a 3 year old Sulcata tortoise. We decided to name her Lechuga and measured her at about 8 inches long. We live in northern Texas and adopted her from a breeder at a reptile expo that was going on this past weekend. I say "adopted" but I feel like I should say "rescued" because I don't think the breeder really knew what he was doing. Lechuga has a decent amount of pyramiding and from what I learned, is probably because she didnt get enough moisture/humidity early in her life. I also understand that "she" might actually be a "he" because its hard to tell the gender until she gets much bigger, but for now we are going with a girl until we know for sure.
I have learned quite alot about Sulcata's in the past few days (way more than I knew before) but I would appreciate any tips yall have to help me in my parenting journey. We started about by getting her a 60 gallon aquarium to live in with a heat lamp, ceramic heat emitter, fogger, uvb light strip, and part soil/sand/coco fiber substrate. By the next day I learned that almost everything I got (about $300 worth) was wrong for her because most of the information I could find online was wrong... thanks google lol. I'm glad I found this forum and Tom's posts about sulcatas. I learned that everything about her substrate was all wrong, the heat lamp was bad for her if too close, the fogger was completely unnecessary and she definitely needed way more space to live in. Alot of the info I found was for baby sulcatas and I didn't realize.
Over the past two days I have been building her a house to live in, following Tom's nightbox post and we have expanded her outdoor enclosure to a 8x16 foot perimeter with plans to expand later. I am going to plant bermuda grass all along the inside for her to graze on. I think that all she had to eat before was tortoise pellets and lettuce because she really doesn't like to eat the timothy hay and orchard hay we bought for her and she constantly trys to eat little rocks outside (i think she thinks they are pellets). But we are slowly adjusting her to a grass diet (Timothy hay/Orchard hay/Wheat grass/Collard greens) while we wait a little longer for the bermuda grass to grow.
From what I understand, we cannot feed her any fruit and try to keep dark leafy greens to 1-2x a week? I also have not been able to weigh her yet because our scale doesnt pick up anything when I try to weigh her. We also sprinkle calcium on her food 2-3x a week? I try to make sure she gets a few hours at least of sun everyday while building her new home. I am nearly done, I still have two little walls to put up inside and then we will seal everything with silicone and then paint the outside. Also I am still waiting on her heating pad and radiant heater to show up in the mail.
Is there anything I am doing wrong or any tips yall might have? From what I understand, shes ready to live outside permanently (as long as it doesnt get too cold). How cold is too cold? As long as her house isnt colder than 75-80 degrees? We live in northern Texas so summers are real hot and winters dont last longer than a month. Also do I need to keep her humidity up in her new house? I have been stressing so much trying to give her the best life possible and I don't want to mess anything up.
First off, I apologize for the long post. I just want to get everything out in one go. So my girlfriend and I recently adopted a 3 year old Sulcata tortoise. We decided to name her Lechuga and measured her at about 8 inches long. We live in northern Texas and adopted her from a breeder at a reptile expo that was going on this past weekend. I say "adopted" but I feel like I should say "rescued" because I don't think the breeder really knew what he was doing. Lechuga has a decent amount of pyramiding and from what I learned, is probably because she didnt get enough moisture/humidity early in her life. I also understand that "she" might actually be a "he" because its hard to tell the gender until she gets much bigger, but for now we are going with a girl until we know for sure.
I have learned quite alot about Sulcata's in the past few days (way more than I knew before) but I would appreciate any tips yall have to help me in my parenting journey. We started about by getting her a 60 gallon aquarium to live in with a heat lamp, ceramic heat emitter, fogger, uvb light strip, and part soil/sand/coco fiber substrate. By the next day I learned that almost everything I got (about $300 worth) was wrong for her because most of the information I could find online was wrong... thanks google lol. I'm glad I found this forum and Tom's posts about sulcatas. I learned that everything about her substrate was all wrong, the heat lamp was bad for her if too close, the fogger was completely unnecessary and she definitely needed way more space to live in. Alot of the info I found was for baby sulcatas and I didn't realize.
Over the past two days I have been building her a house to live in, following Tom's nightbox post and we have expanded her outdoor enclosure to a 8x16 foot perimeter with plans to expand later. I am going to plant bermuda grass all along the inside for her to graze on. I think that all she had to eat before was tortoise pellets and lettuce because she really doesn't like to eat the timothy hay and orchard hay we bought for her and she constantly trys to eat little rocks outside (i think she thinks they are pellets). But we are slowly adjusting her to a grass diet (Timothy hay/Orchard hay/Wheat grass/Collard greens) while we wait a little longer for the bermuda grass to grow.
From what I understand, we cannot feed her any fruit and try to keep dark leafy greens to 1-2x a week? I also have not been able to weigh her yet because our scale doesnt pick up anything when I try to weigh her. We also sprinkle calcium on her food 2-3x a week? I try to make sure she gets a few hours at least of sun everyday while building her new home. I am nearly done, I still have two little walls to put up inside and then we will seal everything with silicone and then paint the outside. Also I am still waiting on her heating pad and radiant heater to show up in the mail.
Is there anything I am doing wrong or any tips yall might have? From what I understand, shes ready to live outside permanently (as long as it doesnt get too cold). How cold is too cold? As long as her house isnt colder than 75-80 degrees? We live in northern Texas so summers are real hot and winters dont last longer than a month. Also do I need to keep her humidity up in her new house? I have been stressing so much trying to give her the best life possible and I don't want to mess anything up.
