Temporary Habitat and Diet for a Sulcata Tortoise?

[Bryna]

In a totally wild turn of events, a tortoise scurried out from our bonfire when we lit it this afternoon!!!

I've tentatively ID'd it as a sulcata tortoise. Think it may have been dumped, as it is getting to be an inconvenient size. I've been looking around, and see these critters grow quite large, and obviously require a large outdoor enclosure with a heated house. However, I am moving from Oregon to New Mexico for grad school next month, and can't invest time or money in a building project that I'm just going to have to repeat next month, lol. So, for now, I need some advice as to how I can take care of this critter. When set up an exercise pen on the lawn (4x8), but a storm just moved in, and temps are dropping. So we switched to an extra large dog crate in the tack room, with a water dish and orchard grass hay.

What else do we need to do? I gather a box with soaked spaghnum moss or coconut fiber for it to burrow in is needed, but how urgent is that? We live a ways out of town, I could probably make it to Petsmart before they close tonight, but tomorrow would be easier. What about soaking it? I'm reading that soaking is good for young tortoises, but I have no idea how old this guy is. Will he be ok for awhile in the dog crate at night and the ex pen during the day? If the temps get into the 50's in the tack room at night, does he need a heat lamp? I don't think it's likely to get colder, this time of year. Anything else I need to be aware of? Thanks!

 

[alysciaingram]

How big of a tort are we talking here? I would make it warmer for the tort in the shed, maybe a heater in the shed to boost it up a little until you move. Also can you post pictures? I'm sure more will chime in with more knowledge, but lucky tort for stumbling into the right area to find a forever home.

 

[Tom]

The first thing to do is get a positive ID. Can you post a pic or two?

 

[Bryna]

How big of a tort are we talking here? I would make it warmer for the tort in the shed, maybe a heater in the shed to boost it up a little until you move. Also can you post pictures? I'm sure more will chime in with more knowledge, but lucky tort for stumbling into the right area to find a forever home.

I didn't measure it, maybe 10-12" long? He's napping in a cardboard box filled with straw right now, we cut out one side to about half way up to make him a burrow. So I don't want to disturb him, but I will see about weighing him tomorrow. Small enough to carry easily yet. I tried to post a picture, but evidently I have to host it somewhere other than FB for image tags to work, so I'm uploading some to Flickr as a type. I think I might actually have a heater in the tack room. I'll try to find it when I go out to feed the horses in a while.

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Ok, pictures (hopefully!)

First sight of him. The dogs were STUNNED (actually, I was too, lol).

I think I will call him (or her) Morla.

"Mom, this rock smells funny. And it's moving!"

Pretty shell!

Hoofin' it.

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I have a four-year-old female ("Rosie") who has been eating erratically for a month or longer (after always being completely healthy.) I've given her warm soaks, during which she would pass fecal matter, then eat a bit. But a week ago she stopped eating altogether, and soaks in her water dish all the time. I thought maybe she was eggbound. I took her to our veterinary clinic where she was seen by a regular (non-exotic) vet, who was consulting by phone with their off-site "avian/exotic" vet. The vet took her in back to take an xray. She said she saw bubbles coming out of Rosie's mouth (which I've never seen), and took a second xray of her lungs. She said her lungs don't look as clear as they should, and diagnosed pneumonia, and gave me antibiotics to inject.

I have an appointment to see the avian/exotic vet in person next week. In the meantime, I can't help wondering – why is Rosie soaking ALL the time in her water dish if she has pneumonia? (I mentioned the soaking to the vet, of course, but she didn't specifically address it.) I'm worried she's been misdiagnosed??

I would SO appreciate any thoughts from you many experienced tortophiles.

 

[Bryna]

Hmm, ok, looks like the pictures didn't work out for some reason. At least not for me, are they showing up for anyone else? And it seems somebody else's post got added to mine? Weird. I will try again with the pics.

First sight of him. The dogs were STUNNED (actually, I was too, lol).

"Mom, this rock smells funny. And it's moving!"

I think I will call him (or her) Morla.

Pretty shell!

Hoofin' it.

Snuggled in for the night.

 

[tiff3grl]

Have you tried posting fliers with minimal detail? This tortoise looks like it belongs to someone and may have just escaped. It looks like you have a lot of land....do you have many houses around you? Tortoises can travel long distances. I only say this because someone may be missing him. If you do not find the owner though he/she will make a great pet if you have the room for it to grow. Sulcatas have great personalities

 

[Bryna]

I've been checked CL for lost ads, and posted a found ad myself, though I may pull that if I get swamped with replies. I know he doesn't belong to any of our closer neighbors on my street. I don't know about the people behind us, there is a swamp and forest on and behind our property, so I don't even know which houses back up to ours, to tell the truth, lol. I'm afraid going door to door looking for tortoise owners is not on my agenda -I'm currently working outside the home as well as writing from home, driving 3 hours one way 2-3 times a week to work my cutting horse, training a dog for agility, and sorting through and packing up 28 years of stuff for a cross country move. Today's an out of town day, but I will call the feed store up once they open and ask them to scribble up a flyer and post it on their board.

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So I've been looking around trying to find this out for myself, but I'm seeing some conflicting info. Can anyone tell me what temperature and weather range a sulcata can be outside in? It's supposed to be in the 60's with clouds and showers for the next two days at least. Do I need to keep him in? That dog crate is obviously far too confining, and I'm thinking about just cleaning out the whole tack room for him, but that will have to wait until I get home from work tomorrow. So it would be good if he could go out at least a little bit. Maybe if we get a sunspot? Would walking through cold, damp, grass harm him?

On a related note, should I give him a bath? He is very, very, dry and leathery looking and feeling. Or should I wait for warmer weather?

 

[tiff3grl]

I've been checked CL for lost ads, and posted a found ad myself, though I may pull that if I get swamped with replies. I know he doesn't belong to any of our closer neighbors on my street. I don't know about the people behind us, there is a swamp and forest on and behind our property, so I don't even know which houses back up to ours, to tell the truth, lol. I'm afraid going door to door looking for tortoise owners is not on my agenda -I'm currently working outside the home as well as writing from home, driving 3 hours one way 2-3 times a week to work my cutting horse, training a dog for agility, and sorting through and packing up 28 years of stuff for a cross country move. Today's an out of town day, but I will call the feed store up once they open and ask them to scribble up a flyer and post it on their board.

---

So I've been looking around trying to find this out for myself, but I'm seeing some conflicting info. Can anyone tell me what temperature and weather range a sulcata can be outside in? It's supposed to be in the 60's with clouds and showers for the next two days at least. Do I need to keep him in? That dog crate is obviously far too confining, and I'm thinking about just cleaning out the whole tack room for him, but that will have to wait until I get home from work tomorrow. So it would be good if he could go out at least a little bit. Maybe if we get a sunspot? Would walking through cold, damp, grass harm him?

On a related note, should I give him a bath? He is very, very, dry and leathery looking and feeling. Or should I wait for warmer weather?

---

That's good that you have been looking just in case there is an owner out there. I just know how sneaky these guys can be and I know I would be searching frantically if it were mine. You never know though.....some people buy them only to realize later how large they become and how much work they can be and decide they can no longer keep them. I would provide only minimal details.....if you don't find the owner it sounds like you are more than willing to give him/her the home they need

Do you have any type of heat source you could set up? Your temps outside are on the cool side. It's hard to tell by the picture how large the tortoise is. You did say you can pick him up pretty easy so he must not be too big. Do you have a garage you could put him in over night? (in a secure area) If your temps drop he will definitely need a dry area. Who knows how long he has been living outside though. They are very resilient but supplying him with a warm shelter is in his best interest.

As for "bathing" him, have you had a lot of rain lately? You say he is dry....do you have a container large enough to place him in? If so, you can soak him...just make sure the water isin't cold. You did a good thing by taking in this homeless tort

 

[Bryna]

Thank you for the suggestions. We have purple heat lamp on her right now (my mom think's it's a girl), I'm just wondering if it's ok to put her out during the day in this weather. My mom took her out to roam for 30 minutes or so this afternoon during a break in the rain, and I'm sure she'd be better off spending all day wandering the lawn, rather than stuck in that crate. But I'm just concerned she will catch a chill. I've never had a cold blooded critter before. My mom weighed and measured her this afternoon, and she is 13" long, 12lbs. Any guesses as to how old that might make her? Or is there a better way to tell than size?

No replies to my CL ad yet, and I haven't seen any lost tortoise postings either. And my FB friends all shared the news -that has to have alerted the entire town to the presence of the mysterious tortoise by now, lol. But I will continue to keep my eyes open. Could she really have been living out there awhile, even with our chilly weather? We actually had some nice weather a couple weeks ago, but it turned out to be a false start to summer, and it's been pretty nasty the last two weeks.

 

[JoesMum]

Coloured heat lamps are not recommended for tortoises. They have excellent colour vision and love purple and red coloured food as it is usually sweet and tasty... they are not the cleverest animals and can try eating things that are coloured by the light thinking that they are edible.

For basking a standard household spot lamp will do the job just as well. If it's too cold at night, you need a Ceramic Heat Emitter (CHE) which gives off no light, just heat. They are not nocturnal and do better with complete darkness at night.

Your tort will definitely benefit from going outside as much as possible. One option is to rig up a basking lamp for him outdoors, I use dog kennel, and anothr is to let him bask indoors for a few hours until he's active and then put him out to graze. A big tort holds the heat quite well and will stay active for aquitea while when fully warmed up.

 

[Bryna]

Coloured heat lamps are not recommended for tortoises. They have excellent colour vision and love purple and red coloured food as it is usually sweet and tasty... they are not the cleverest animals and can try eating things that are coloured by the light thinking that they are edible.

For basking a standard household spot lamp will do the job just as well. If it's too cold at night, you need a Ceramic Heat Emitter (CHE) which gives off no light, just heat. They are not nocturnal and do better with complete darkness at night.

Your tort will definitely benefit from going outside as much as possible. One option is to rig up a basking lamp for him outdoors, I use dog kennel, and anothr is to let him bask indoors for a few hours until he's active and then put him out to graze. A big tort holds the heat quite well and will stay active for aquitea while when fully warmed up.

Hi JoesMum, thank you for the advice! The light doesn't provide any illumination, I believe it is outside the visible spectrum. IR, maybe? Or maybe UV, since it's purple? In any event, it definitely isn't coloring anything in the cage, nor disturbing Morla's beauty rest, lol. It just gives off heat. It was raining this morning, so I ended up just bringing her in and setting her in front of the stove. She enjoyed that for awile, then wandered the kitchen for a bit. When the weather improved, she got to go out of the lawn.

I wasn't sure if she was eating -I was putting grass I picked, as well as orchard grass hay and a little spinach, in her cage, and there was always plenty left. But she ate a big handful of chard and kale this afternoon, and did some grazing as well, and evidently has gained some weight! I would think the scale just wasn't accurate in that range, except she felt noticeably heavier when I picked her up. She's been pooping every day as well, so digestion seems to be working. I haven't yet seen her drink, but I gather that isn't something they always do?

She's starting to show some personality as well! She spent a lot of time following my cat around today, which surprisingly didn't bother the cat at all -in fact, she turned around and followed Morla for a bit as well. She also seems like being carried. Every time I pick her up to move her, she pokes her head and legs out and looks happy. And I found that she also enjoys having her head rubbed -when I started to rub behind her eyes, she stretched her neck out as far as it would go, and rubbed back, like she has an itchy neck. Pretty cute!

 

[JoesMum]

She should be peeing every day, but you may not find it. If she isn't it's because water isn't available and that will become obvious as your tort pees more white jelly like urate instead. Soaking foodstuffs under the tap before feeding helps to get a bit more water on board.

 

[Bryna]

Ok, soaked her breakfast this morning, which really seemed to please her. I don't think she's eating any hay though, she just seems to like these greens, which I understand are not the best diet. It's supposed to be nicer this afternoon though, so hopefully she can be out grazing all afternoon and will get some roughage that way. Got some cute pics of her eating!

She loves rainbow chard!

Yumm!

That pink tongue is hilarious.

Collard is good as well.

 

[mainey34]

She definitely did belong to someone. And my guess by the pics, looks like a girl. A pretty one at that. You are doing everything possible to find her owner. She is definitely under weight. I guess she stopped by your way because she knew you would fatten her up....lol.