Sulcata size issues

[ChristopherPope]

Hello I have a Sulcata tortoise and she has just turned 2. She's only 5-6" big and I think she has growing issues as I have studied that is small for her age
Any help?

 

[Yvonne G]

Heat plays an awfully important role in growth. Can you describe your habitat plus the lights and heating?

 

[ChristopherPope]

It's a 3ft viv and a 60w basking light with a 10uvb strobe light.

 

[Tom]

That is a little small, but not too bad. Growth looks okay.

We need much more info to help you.
1. 3' viv is much to small for a two year old, 6" sulcata.
2. What are your four temps? Warm side, cool side, basking spot and night?
3. What have you been feeding?
4. How often do you soak?
5. For the last two years has your enclosure been simulating the African rainy season and and African desert?
6. What is a 10uvb strobe light.? Do you mean it's a coil type UV bulb? Like a compact florescent bulb?

 

[neonsparklexoxo]

That is a little small, but not too bad. Growth looks okay.

We need much more info to help you.
1. 3' viv is much to small for a two year old, 6" sulcata.
2. What are your four temps? Warm side, cool side, basking spot and night?
3. What have you been feeding?
4. How often do you soak?
5. For the last two years has your enclosure been simulating the African rainy season and and African desert?
6. What is a 10uvb strobe light.? Do you mean it's a coil type UV bulb? Like a compact florescent bulb?

now with simulating the African rainy season and desert how would you do that?? make it more moist for the amount of time for the rainy season and more dry for the desert? I will be getting my baby sulcata Thursday and am setting up his new enclosure so I am trying to get as much info as possible.

 

[mainey34]

Have you been offering outdoor time, exercise, and sunlight? Your tort really is not too bad of size for age. Mine was aprox. The same. We just had a growth spurt...now we are 8" 4.6# @ 3 years

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

That is a little small, but not too bad. Growth looks okay.

We need much more info to help you.
1. 3' viv is much to small for a two year old, 6" sulcata.
2. What are your four temps? Warm side, cool side, basking spot and night?
3. What have you been feeding?
4. How often do you soak?
5. For the last two years has your enclosure been simulating the African rainy season and and African desert?
6. What is a 10uvb strobe light.? Do you mean it's a coil type UV bulb? Like a compact florescent bulb?

now with simulating the African rainy season and desert how would you do that?? make it more moist for the amount of time for the rainy season and more dry for the desert? I will be getting my baby sulcata Thursday and am setting up his new enclosure so I am trying to get as much info as possible.

Please take the time to read the stickies that are threads Tom has put together. These help ensure a nice, healthy growing sulcata hatchling.

 

[Tom]

That is a little small, but not too bad. Growth looks okay.

We need much more info to help you.
1. 3' viv is much to small for a two year old, 6" sulcata.
2. What are your four temps? Warm side, cool side, basking spot and night?
3. What have you been feeding?
4. How often do you soak?
5. For the last two years has your enclosure been simulating the African rainy season and and African desert?
6. What is a 10uvb strobe light.? Do you mean it's a coil type UV bulb? Like a compact florescent bulb?

now with simulating the African rainy season and desert how would you do that?? make it more moist for the amount of time for the rainy season and more dry for the desert? I will be getting my baby sulcata Thursday and am setting up his new enclosure so I am trying to get as much info as possible.

I mis-typed that. It should have said "African rainy season OR African desert?"

For decades "experts" have been advocating desert-like conditions for this species and they are dead wrong. Sulcatas hatch at the start of the rainy season. For their first few months it is hot, humid, rainy, marshy, and there is food growing everywhere. THIS is what starts them out right. The typical set up of rabbit pellets, no water bowl, no hide and infrequent soaks, sets them up for failure to thrive or death a few months down the road. Some of them make it and some don't. No one can say why. In the case of the OP, if his was started in the typical dry fashion, it might help to explain why the growth has been a little slower than some others, although his is really not bad.