The Best Way To Raise A Sulcata, Leopard, Or Star Tortoise

[Bespin66]

All that information is available on Mark’s Facebook page just search for “Smart Tortoise Keeper”

Thank you. Unfortunately, I don't have a Facebook account.

 

[Bespin66]

Thank you all!

 

[sheerpanicbarbie]

@Tom Hey there! I've been following your advice here religiously. My sulcata is now 233g, and I'm wondering what soaking schedule I should be using. She's in a closed enclosure with 80% humidity, a humid hide, and ample water. She's four times the size she was just a few months ago! Re: soaking, that's really the only place she poops, so I'm nervous to stop. Having said that, I'll be using a pet sitter for 2 weeks this summer, and I'm hoping soaking won't be a big factor by that time. Any advice?

 

[Tom]

@Tom Hey there! I've been following your advice here religiously. My sulcata is now 233g, and I'm wondering what soaking schedule I should be using. She's in a closed enclosure with 80% humidity, a humid hide, and ample water. She's four times the size she was just a few months ago! Re: soaking, that's really the only place she poops, so I'm nervous to stop. Having said that, I'll be using a pet sitter for 2 weeks this summer, and I'm hoping soaking won't be a big factor by that time. Any advice?

Hello! Thank you for posting this. Stories like yours help carry me through the tougher days.

My general way of thinking about the soaking is that babies need it every day. Adults need it once or twice a week. I make a slow transition between the two. After 100 grams, I start skipping a day now and then. By 1000 grams, I'm usually down to every other day.

At 233 grams I think it would be fine to skip a few days in a row while you are away. Just do more before and after.

 

[sheerpanicbarbie]

Hello! Thank you for posting this. Stories like yours help carry me through the tougher days.

My general way of thinking about the soaking is that babies need it every day. Adults need it once or twice a week. I make a slow transition between the two. After 100 grams, I start skipping a day now and then. By 1000 grams, I'm usually down to every other day.

At 233 grams I think it would be fine to skip a few days in a row while you are away. Just do more before and after.

Thank you so much for the quick reply! It’s so helpful to me. And thank you- so sincerely- for taking the time to post so much guidance for us all. I started Tahoma (native name for Mount Rainier) dry and read your guidance about 4 days after I got her. It involved changing tanks and radically changing my approach, but she’s now about to be upgraded yet again to a 6’ by 2’ closed humid enclosure. I’m learning so much! Thanks again.

 

[jaraquistain]

Hey guys I finally got my baby last weekend and I’m feeling pretty good overall but I wanted to see if anyone had some advice on a couple things:

1) Any suggestions for getting them to try a more varied diet? Is it just something they explore over time? I’ve been feeding every day with a mix of spring mix and some combination of a few of probably 5-6 different kinds of weeds and grasses from my backyard plus some of the powdered supplements suggested in the guide. The breeder told me he had been feeding them spring mix but over the last week it has expressed really a preference for only one of the types of weeds and hasn’t been eating much of the other stuff. I know it’s only been a week so there’s not much data and maybe it’s opinion will change next week but if anyone has any opinions on that I’d like to hear. I’ve considered chopping up the food into smaller pieces to get a better mix since I’ve just been going with the whole leaf

2) for outside time I built a 3x4 frame with a chicken wire top that I’ve been setting on the ground. The ground is a mixture of just regular dirt and weeds/grass. I was wondering if this is ok for a 5 week old baby (it weighs 59g to give you an idea of size). My concern is that since there are dirt patches the baby might try to eat some dirt or small rocks or something. I don’t really have anywhere that is JUST grass so if the dirt is dangerous i would just add a bottom onto my frame with orchid bark or some other safer substrate

Anyway, let me know what you guys think. I’ve just been so excited for so long I want to make sure I’m doing the best for my baby. Reminds me of when my human kids were born!

Also I can take some pictures tomorrow when the sun is back up if it helps to see what I’m talking about

 

[Tom]

Hey guys I finally got my baby last weekend and I’m feeling pretty good overall but I wanted to see if anyone had some advice on a couple things:

1) Any suggestions for getting them to try a more varied diet? Is it just something they explore over time? I’ve been feeding every day with a mix of spring mix and some combination of a few of probably 5-6 different kinds of weeds and grasses from my backyard plus some of the powdered supplements suggested in the guide. The breeder told me he had been feeding them spring mix but over the last week it has expressed really a preference for only one of the types of weeds and hasn’t been eating much of the other stuff. I know it’s only been a week so there’s not much data and maybe it’s opinion will change next week but if anyone has any opinions on that I’d like to hear. I’ve considered chopping up the food into smaller pieces to get a better mix since I’ve just been going with the whole leaf

2) for outside time I built a 3x4 frame with a chicken wire top that I’ve been setting on the ground. The ground is a mixture of just regular dirt and weeds/grass. I was wondering if this is ok for a 5 week old baby (it weighs 59g to give you an idea of size). My concern is that since there are dirt patches the baby might try to eat some dirt or small rocks or something. I don’t really have anywhere that is JUST grass so if the dirt is dangerous i would just add a bottom onto my frame with orchid bark or some other safer substrate

Anyway, let me know what you guys think. I’ve just been so excited for so long I want to make sure I’m doing the best for my baby. Reminds me of when my human kids were born!

Also I can take some pictures tomorrow when the sun is back up if it helps to see what I’m talking about

If the breeder didn't introduce the right foods, you will have to spend months doing it in small increments. Mince up a tiny amount of the new item and mix that with an old favorite that is all chopped up. It helps it stick if the greens are wet. Over time add more and more of the new items.

Keep outside time to a minimum for a baby, especially since it has been so cold. Outside is no place for a baby sulcata when temps are in the low 60s. When the weather warms up, keep the outside time to an hour of sun per inch of tortoise a couple few times a week. The great outdoors isn't so great for babies, it turns out. They do better when kept mostly indoors until they gain some size. The dirt should be fine. Supplement with MinerAll if you see rock eating. Since your tortoise was fed such a poor diet by the breeder, you might want to use the MinerAll just to be safe. Rock eating is usually worse with torts that have been fed mostly grocery store greens. Be sure all of those weeds are ID'd and known to be safe. Look out for fiddleneck and Indian tobacco. There are several bad ones.

 

[Trtl3L0v3r]

I don’t know how you did it, but you managed to improve perfection. I will forever be amazed by your crazy in depth and well written care guides!

I’ve been procrastinating writing a sulcata care guide for the reptile site I moderate for forever, because I usually just link yours and have never seen any reason to write a different one. However, could I instead just convert this one to a post there, and submit it to our wiki for easy access to anyone that joins? You would be fully credited, of course, and it would be great to get this information to more people.

thanks for this post!

I worry she is a dry raised sulcata. She is not keen to sleeping in damp areas. Any suggestions? I have some Coco coir left over from when I had watched my friends breadie. I did attempt to make a spot for her using an old 5 gallon bucket some backyard dirt, chips of bark and Coco coir... She wants nothing to do with it damp or dry. So I figured I'd let her choose her own spot.

 

[Tom]

So I figured I'd let her choose her own spot.

Many people seem to think this is a good way to go, but it isn't. Many die this way. Even in their native range this doesn't work in a captive situation.

I replied further on the other thread.

 

[Rombengy]

is container box with lid can be use as enclosure? if i cut holes for the light and for oxygen? trying to search for closed chamber enclosure but couldnt find it in my country

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

is container box with lid can be use as enclosure? if i cut holes for the light and for oxygen? trying to search for closed chamber enclosure but couldnt find it in my country

I see you are in Indonesia, with a naturally high ambient humidity. I have seen images posted on Facebook of many species inclined to pyramid that are normal in shell growth. To answer your question there are many many ways to create a fully enclosed habitat. The primary consideration after it being 'enclosed' is foot print/floor space. The more the better to some extent. A square meter is a good starting point for a baby tortoise. As for holes for air exchange, unless the enclosure is fully sealed there is no need for holes. Daily service of the enclosure proves effective as enough air exchnage to indicate no compromise to life.

 

[Jsmithcali130]

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species.

Babies hatch during the start of the rainy season. It is hot, very humid, rainy, and marshy in some areas. There are puddles and lush green growing food everywhere. In some areas there is a dry season, but the hot monsoon season is when babies hatch, and babies find humid microclimates to hide in during drier times. In extreme conditions they aestivate and don't eat or grow at all when its hot and dry. Keeping your hatchling in a dry, desert-like enclosure, is a big mistake and an invitation to disaster. It is also very un-natural for these animals. Damp substrate, a water bowl, and a humid hide should all be pre-requisites. Along with this, warm temps day and night are necessary. Sulcatas, leopards and stars are NOT prone to shell rot at all, and they do not get respiratory infections in these damp conditions as long as temps are kept up. I shoot for no lower than 80 degrees day or night year round, and all three of these heat loving species do well with a day time ambient approaching 90 degrees. Humidity is at 80+% all the time. Most people keep them too cool and too dry. Adults can tolerate colder temps and drier conditions in some circumstances, but this care sheet is for hatchlings and babies and is aimed at helping them thrive, not just survive. I know the books, the breeders and the "experts" all say the opposite of this. They are wrong. They've been wrong for 30 years. For 20 of those years I was wrong right along with them. Some of us have learned and advanced. Some have not. Keep this in mind when consulting a vet, or a potential breeder or seller that you want to buy from. As soon as they contradict this info and tell you "this is a desert species", you will know NOT to buy from them.

Some General Notes:

• Set up your enclosure, run it, check it and make adjustments BEFORE you bring home a new tortoise. Babies are easy if the set up is correct. Babies aren't delicate or difficult. When babies are not started correctly is when people have problems with them. Babies have a smaller margin of error due to their smaller body mass, if you've made mistakes, or if the enclosure and equipment isn't already set up and at the right temperatures.
• You won't find most of what you need to set up a tortoise at a pet store. What you will find is expensive stuff that is bad for your tortoise and lots of bad advice. This is true even at most reptile specialty places. Where to get tortoise supplies then? The hardware store or large department stores. There are a few exceptions like reptile thermostats, some reptile heating elements, and UV tubes. I get these from on-line sellers.
• If you are going the the grocery store to buy tortoise food, you are feeding the wrong stuff. If you have no other choice but to use grocery store food due to your climate and weather for part of the year, it will need to be amended to make it more suitable as tortoise food. More on this later.
• It is my hope that this care sheet finds you BEFORE you buy a tortoise. Most breeders start their babies too dry. The end result is stunting, pyramiding and sometimes death weeks or months later. Don't get a baby from someone who starts them dry, on dry substrate, outdoors all day, and doesn't soak daily.
• Some common mistakes to avoid, with more explanation later: Buying from the wrong (dry) source, getting advice and products from a pet store, free roaming indoors or out, feeding a diet of mostly grocery store foods without amendments, not soaking daily, cool temps, wrong UV bulbs, wrong basking bulbs, letting dogs around your tortoise, small enclosures, open topped enclosures, sand or soil substrates, bad vet care or advice, too much outside time for little babies, keeping a pair of tortoises in the same enclosure...

Heating And Lighting:
I use a 45-65 watt incandescent flood bulb on a 12 hour timer and adjust the height of the fixture to get a basking area of around 95-100 directly under the bulb. In some closed chambers I go with lower wattage bulbs. This depends on many factors and no one can tell you exactly what wattage you will need in your enclosure. Let your thermometer be your guide. I use a ceramic heating element or a radiant heat panel set to 80 degrees on a reptile thermostat to maintain my ambient temperature in the enclosure. The basking lamp should raise the day time ambient temperature into the high 80s or low 90s. Ambient should be no lower than 80, but drifting up to 90 during the heat of the day is good. The thermostat will keep your CHE or RHP off during these times, but ready to click on after the basking lamp clicks off and the ambient temperature starts to drop at night. I use LED bulbs when I want to brighten up the whole enclosure and I run these on the same timer as the basking bulb. There are other ways to do some of this, but trial and error have shown time and time again, that the above is what works the best. Don't use "spot" bulbs, reptile specialty bulbs, halogen bulbs, any cfl, or mercury vapor bulbs. You want a plain old, regular incandescent flood bulb from the hardware store. I buy them in six or twelve packs, so I always have extras on hand. They always go out at the most inopportune times.

UV:
Tortoises need regular exposure to the right kind of UV rays in order to make vitamin D2 into D3 to be able to utilize dietary calcium. Real sunshine is best, but be careful. Shade should always be available as babies can overheat and die surprisingly quickly. If your tortoise can get some regular sunning time in a safe outdoor enclosure, even just a couple of times a week for most of the year, you don't need any artificial UV. Its okay if you have to skip two or three weeks of sunning time during a cold winter spell. If you live somewhere with long frozen winters, then some artificial UV might be in order for that time of year. I no longer recommend mercury vapor bulbs for several reasons, but florescent HO (High Output) UV tubes work very well according to my UV meter. CFL type UV bulbs are ineffective as UV sources and sometime burn reptile eyes. No type of compact florescent bulb should be used over a tortoise. Also get yourself a Solarmeter 6.5. Without a UV meter, you are guessing about the UV levels in your enclosure, no different than guessing the temperature without a thermometer. At least without a thermometer you can still feel the temperature with your hand. You can't feel UV levels. These meters pay for themselves in short order since you won't be replacing perfectly good working bulbs every six months, as the sellers recommend.

Too much outside time is bad for babies. It slows their growth tremendously and causes pyramiding. I've done many side-by-side experiments with clutch mates over the years to determine this fact. My general rule is an hour of access to sunshine per inch of tortoise. Once they reach around 5 inches, outside all day is fine, weather permitting, but soak daily and continue to let them sleep in their humid closed chamber every night until they get a bit bigger.

The Enclosure:
I have not been able to make any open topped enclosure work to my satisfaction. Low sided open topped enclosures like tortoise tables and sweater boxes are the worst. No amount of covering, or attempts to slow heat and humidity loss have worked well for me. There is just no way to keep the warm humid air where you want it. Closed chambers are the way to go. Maintaining whatever temperature and humidity you want is easy and efficient in a closed chamber. They use a lot less electricity because all of your heat and humidity is contained with nowhere to go. It also makes maintaining warm night temps a snap. Open tops allow all your warm humid air to escape up and into the room where your enclosure sits. Even if you cover most of the top, the heat lamps create a chimney effect and draw your heat and humidity up and out. Having the heat lamps outside, or on top of, the enclosure also lets the majority of the electrically generated heat you are creating float up up and away. A closed chamber contains all the heat and humidity. It works best if all the heating and lighting equipment is INSIDE the enclosure with the tortoise. Any other way is a compromise and less than ideal. Maintaining a small open topped box at 80 degrees with 80% humidity in a regular sized room that is 70 degrees and 20% humidity is VERY difficult, if not impossible in a practical sense. A closed chamber makes it easy.
Here are pictures of the plain basic closed chambers that I use to start babies:
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You can make it much more fancy and add plants and decorations if you want. I'm going for simplicity and I spend time making their outdoor enclosures more fantastic. When done correctly, your baby will only be in this enclosure for a year or two, and then it will be time to move outside full time with a heated night box, or get much larger indoor accommodations if this is what your climate dictates.

What if you already bought a glass tank or wooden tortoise enclosure? How can you make that one work? You really can't. Covering the top and trying to contain the heat and humidity is better than nothing, but the sooner you resign yourself to buying or building the right kind of enclosure, the sooner you and your tortoise will reap the benefits. Almost everyone gets bad info from the breeder, pet store, vets, and all over the internet. I'm sorry this happens and sorry you bought all the wrong stuff, but it helps no one when a person keeps trying to jam that square peg into a round hole. Think it over, take a deep breath, and just go get the correct stuff now that you know. I encourage people to return the items to the pet shop and tell them why. Eventually they will learn and stop selling dangerous, bad, and useless items to people.

You need to know, and periodically adjust your temperatures. You need to regularly check warm side, cool side, basking spot and night temps, and adjust as needed. Every enclosure is different and they even change with the seasons in most households. It is not enough to screw a bulb in and walk away. Check those temps, and make adjustments, preferably BEFORE the baby even comes home. I like to use an infrared temp gun AND digital thermometers for this purpose. Check your temps early and often.

Enclosure Size:
Simply put: The bigger the better. I start babies in a 30x48 inch closed chamber. As a minimum, I would suggest no smaller than 36"x18" for a tiny hatchling, but you'll need to upgrade quickly. They need room to roam around. Once you put in the food and water bowls, the humid hide, and any decorations or potted plants, there is hardly any room left over to walk. Tortoises do not tend to do as well as some other types of reptiles when stuffed into small enclosures. They need room to roam inside their safe heated enclosures, and the floor is not a safe option. Don't think that you'll use a smaller enclosure, and just let Sheldon out to roam the floor for some exercise. This almost always ends in disaster. Its bad for your tortoise and impaction, sickness, injury, or death is the usual result. "But, but, but... I make it safe and supervise closely..." says every person until the day that disaster eventually strikes and they realize they were wrong. Its a terrible sickening feeling to hold a dead tortoise in your hand. Don't put yourself through this. Make a large enclosure. Don't have room for a large enclosure? Get a different pet that can live in a smaller enclosure that you have room for. Tortoises aren't good pets for everyone. For a sulcata, even 4x8' is only going to last a year or two. You might get three years with it for a star, leopard or slower growing sulcata, but that is optimistic. Outdoor enclosures can be even larger. Babies will NOT get lost or overwhelmed in 10x10 foot enclosure. In the wild they roam far greater distances than that.

Humid Hide Boxes:
This offers the tortoise a more humid place to retreat to and sleep and can simulate some of the more damp micro-climates they might utilize in the wild. It is as simple as getting a $2 black dishwashing tub from Walmart, flipping it upside down and cutting out a small door hole. I keep the substrate under the tub more damp than the surrounding substrate and it works great. You can also use plastic shoe boxes. Sphagnum moss is unnecessary and potentially dangerous since they eat it, and it can cause an impaction. The humid hide is a very important detail that should not be overlooked. Half logs and flower pots on their sides do not work. They are not closed in enough.

Substrate:
There are only three viable options. Coco coir, orchid bark, and cypress mulch. All of these can be purchased in bulk at most hardware or garden center stores at a tremendous savings. I don't like coco coir for these species because its too messy. I don't like cypress mulch because the pieces aren't uniform, some pieces are too big or too sharp, and because it smells like the swamp that is came from. If these two are all you can find, then go ahead and use them. They are safe and suitable. Fine grade orchid bark works the best. Its cheap, easy, holds moisture well, doesn't stink, easy to clean, easy for babies to walk on, not an ingestion hazard, etc... I recommend against any store bought soil, "Pets At Home" reptile bedding with the little white limestone bits in it, wood shavings or chips, ground walnut shell, corn cob bedding, rabbit pellets, compressed grass pellet bedding, newspaper pellets, hay, cedar, or any amount of sand. None of those are safe or suitable for an indoor tortoise enclosure.

Water Dishes:
Plain old terra cotta plant saucers work best. They come in a variety of sizes to suit any size tortoise, they offer good traction to little wet tortoise feet, they have low sides, they are cheap so you can buy extras, and they are shallow so your tortoise won't drown if it happens to flip over and land upside down in the water bowl. Sink the bowl into the substrate for best results. I prefer to give babies two water bowls. Do NOT use the typical ramped pet store bowls. These are great for snakes and lizards, but they can literally be death traps for tortoises. Clean your terra cotta saucer as often as needed. The more they track food and substrate into it, and the more they poop in it, the better. This means they are comfortable using their bowl, and that is great news. Just rinse and refill as many times a day as you need to. A water bowl that stays clean and untouched all day is a water bowl that is not being used for one reason or another. This is a bad sign, and it means your tortoise is one step closer to dehydration.

Soaking:
I recommend ALL hatchlings of ALL species be soaked in 85-95 degree water for at least 20-30 minutes every day. I use a tall sided opaque tub and keep the water depth about a third to half way up the body. If you have a humid enclosure with a humid hide and a water bowl, it is totally fine to skip a day here and there. Soaking only once a week and using a dry enclosure is not enough in my opinion, and I would not buy a hatchling that had been started that way. Once the tortoise gets to about 100 grams, I start skipping a day now and then. I gradually taper it down as they gain size. How often I soak older tortoises depends on a lot of factors, the current weather and season being two big ones. I soak more often when its hot and dry. If you live in a warm, humid, rainy climate, and your tortoise is exposed to these conditions, soaking less often is probably fine, but it still wont hurt anything to do it. You cannot soak too much or for too long. Soaking does not do any harm whatsoever. It doesn't make them poop too much and not digest their food, it doesn't upset their "water balance", whatever that is, it doesn't give them shell rot or respiratory infections, and it is NOT unnatural in any way. "But, but, but... Who soaks them every day in nature???" These babies hatch at the start of the RAINY season in the wild. Its raining on them frequently, and puddles form all over the place. Keep the soak water warm for the entire soak. If you are in a hurry, 10 minutes is enough. If you are forgetful or get distracted, an hour will do no harm.

Feeding:
So much contradictory info on this subject. Its simple. What do they eat in the wild. Grass, weeds, leaves, flowers, and succulents. Feed them a huge variety of these things, and you'll have a healthy tortoise. All of these species are very adaptable when it comes to diet and there is a very large margin of error, and many ways to do it right. What if you don't have this sort of "natural" tortoise food available for part of each year because you are in the snow? You will have no choice but to buy grocery store food. What's wrong with grocery store food? It tends to lack fiber, some items are low in calcium or have a poor calcium to phosphorous ratio, and some items have deleterious compounds in them. All of these short comings can be improved with some simple supplementation and amendments. A pinch of calcium two times per week will help fix that problem. You can also leave cuttle bone in the enclosure, so your tortoise can self-regulate its own calcium intake. What about fiber? Soaked horse hay pellets, soaked ZooMed Grassland pellets, Mazuri tortoise chow, "Salad style", "Herbal Hay" both from @TylerStewart and his lovely wife Sarah at Tortoisesupply.com, or many of the dried plants and leaves available from Will @Kapidolo Farms. If you must use grocery store foods, favor endive and escarole as your main staples. Add in arugula, cilantro, kale, collard, mustard and turnip greens, squash leaves, spring mix, romaine, green or red leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, water cress, carrot tops, celery tops, bok choy, and whatever other greens you can find. If you mix in some of the aforementioned amendments, these grocery store foods will offer plenty of variety and fiber and be able to meet your tortoises nutritional needs just fine. I find it preferable to grab a few grapevine or mulberry leaves, or a handful of mallow and clover, or some broadleaf plantain leaves and some grass, but with the right additions, grocery store stuff is fine too. Grow your own stuff, or find it around you when possible. Tyler and Sarah also sell a fantastic Testudo seed mix that is great for ALL tortoise species and also super easy to grow in pots, trays, raised garden beds, or in outdoor tortoise enclosures. When that isn't possible, add a wide variety of good stuff to your grocery store greens to make them better.

Supplements:
I recommend you keep cuttle bone available all the time. Some never use it and some munch on it regularly. Some of mine will go months without touching it, and then suddenly eat the whole thing in a day or two. Sulcatas and leopards grow a lot. This requires a tremendous amount of calcium assimilation over time. A great diet is paramount, but it is still a good idea to give them some extra calcium regularly. I use a tiny pinch of RepCal or ZooMed plain old calcium carbonate twice a week. Much discussion has been given to whether or not they need D3 in their calcium supplement. Personally, I don't think it matters. Every tortoise should be getting adequate UV exposure one way or another, so they should be able to make their own D3. I also like to use a mineral supplement. "MinerAll" is my current brand of choice. It seems to help those tortoises that like to swallow pebbles and rocks. It is speculated that some tortoise eat rocks or substrate due to a mineral deficiency or imbalance. Whatever the reason, "MinerAll" seems to stop it or prevent it. Finally, I like to use a reptile vitamin supplement once a week, to round out any hidden deficiencies that may be in my diet over the course of a year.

Outdoor Enclosures:
This is a MUST in my opinion. Tortoises are solar powered, need lots of walking room, and benefit greatly from some time in the great outdoors. With hatchlings I start with short excursions of only an hour a day, followed by a soak on the way in. As they gain size, I like to leave them out longer and longer each day, weather permitting, until they eventually live outside full time with a heated night box of some sort, where climate allows. Outside time must be done with great care as there are many dangers. They can overheat, be eaten or mauled, or escape. Here is one simple idea. A large kiddie pool or horse watering trough could also work. If you don't have a suitable grassy area, you can put a plywood bottom on this with wheels and legs, and move it around. Do NOT let your baby roam free outside. You will lose it eventually, and you'll be unable to explain how it happened so fast when you were watching so carefully. Its a sickening feeling. Don't put yourself through this. Use an enclosure and make it large. Also, if you have a dog, or people who come to visit bring a dog, your tortoise is in grave danger. Be careful. EVERY dog will chew up a tortoise. It doesn't matter how nice and loving a dog it is. Tortoises are seen as chew toys by dogs. Don't let this happen to your tortoise. Physically prevent it with fencing and/or correct housing. Don't leave it to chance. It is a horrible sickening feeling holding a mauled tortoise in your hands. Don't put yourself through this.
View attachment 291555

Pyramiding:
This is the subject of many threads in itself. I will simply state here what I know to be true based on my experience, my experiments, conversations with people who live other countries and study tortoises, people who have kept them for decades here in the U.S., and personal observations of thousands of tortoises in all manners of keeping styles.

There are many things listed as causes of pyramiding. I can refute each one with multiple examples. Lack of UV, lack of calcium, too much protein, too much food, the wrong foods, fast growth, wrong temperatures, small enclosures, not enough exercise, indoor housing, etc. None of these factors CAUSES pyramiding. They can all be somehow related to it, but they don't cause it. Simply put: Pyramiding is caused by growth in conditions that are too dry. This is true for any species of tortoise, even the ones that don't typically pyramid. To prevent pyramiding I use a closed chamber and keep the ambient temperature 80 or higher all the time, I keep humidity at 80% or higher, I offer a humid hide that holds 95-100% humidity, I soak daily to ensure good hydration, and I spray the carapace with plain water several times a day. Sulcatas hatch during the African rainy season. It is hot, humid, rainy and marshy. It makes no sense to keep them in a dry box, with dry substrate, and a hot desiccating bulb overhead. Simulating this rainy season has grown me hundreds of smooth leopard and sulcata babies, as well as a few other species too. There are literally thousands of examples of other people succeeding using the same basic philosophy here on this forum. So please, don't keep sulcatas and leopards in desert-style enclosures. It is not healthy for them. They are not the least bit prone to shell rot, like some other species are, and they DO NOT get respiratory infections from high humidity as long as temps are 80 or higher everywhere in the enclosure, day and night. I don't say these things and come up with these assertions lightly. Its not that I raised one tortoise this way, and everything went okay. I have literally raised hundreds of tortoises of multiple species this way and had nothing but success. My methods and success rate have been repeated by thousands of tortoise keepers all over the globe. We have more than 10 years of living healthy examples to back up these assertions.

If you want to prevent pyramiding, simply do the above stuff.
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Questions and conversation are welcome. The goal here is to help people to have happy, healthy, long lived tortoises and avoid some common mistakes.

Thank you for the detailed information this was helpful. What would you use for a substrate outside once they’re large?

 

[Tom]

Thank you for the detailed information this was helpful. What would you use for a substrate outside once they’re large?

I use the ground. Whatever is out there already, as long as it isn't something dangerous or toxic like gravel or fresh sod.

 

[ExoticsinMay]

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species.

Babies hatch during the start of the rainy season. It is hot, very humid, rainy, and marshy in some areas. There are puddles and lush green growing food everywhere. In some areas there is a dry season, but the hot monsoon season is when babies hatch, and babies find humid microclimates to hide in during drier times. In extreme conditions they aestivate and don't eat or grow at all when its hot and dry. Keeping your hatchling in a dry, desert-like enclosure, is a big mistake and an invitation to disaster. It is also very un-natural for these animals. Damp substrate, a water bowl, and a humid hide should all be pre-requisites. Along with this, warm temps day and night are necessary. Sulcatas, leopards and stars are NOT prone to shell rot at all, and they do not get respiratory infections in these damp conditions as long as temps are kept up. I shoot for no lower than 80 degrees day or night year round, and all three of these heat loving species do well with a day time ambient approaching 90 degrees. Humidity is at 80+% all the time. Most people keep them too cool and too dry. Adults can tolerate colder temps and drier conditions in some circumstances, but this care sheet is for hatchlings and babies and is aimed at helping them thrive, not just survive. I know the books, the breeders and the "experts" all say the opposite of this. They are wrong. They've been wrong for 30 years. For 20 of those years I was wrong right along with them. Some of us have learned and advanced. Some have not. Keep this in mind when consulting a vet, or a potential breeder or seller that you want to buy from. As soon as they contradict this info and tell you "this is a desert species", you will know NOT to buy from them.

Some General Notes:

• Set up your enclosure, run it, check it and make adjustments BEFORE you bring home a new tortoise. Babies are easy if the set up is correct. Babies aren't delicate or difficult. When babies are not started correctly is when people have problems with them. Babies have a smaller margin of error due to their smaller body mass, if you've made mistakes, or if the enclosure and equipment isn't already set up and at the right temperatures.
• You won't find most of what you need to set up a tortoise at a pet store. What you will find is expensive stuff that is bad for your tortoise and lots of bad advice. This is true even at most reptile specialty places. Where to get tortoise supplies then? The hardware store or large department stores. There are a few exceptions like reptile thermostats, some reptile heating elements, and UV tubes. I get these from on-line sellers.
• If you are going the the grocery store to buy tortoise food, you are feeding the wrong stuff. If you have no other choice but to use grocery store food due to your climate and weather for part of the year, it will need to be amended to make it more suitable as tortoise food. More on this later.
• It is my hope that this care sheet finds you BEFORE you buy a tortoise. Most breeders start their babies too dry. The end result is stunting, pyramiding and sometimes death weeks or months later. Don't get a baby from someone who starts them dry, on dry substrate, outdoors all day, and doesn't soak daily.
• Some common mistakes to avoid, with more explanation later: Buying from the wrong (dry) source, getting advice and products from a pet store, free roaming indoors or out, feeding a diet of mostly grocery store foods without amendments, not soaking daily, cool temps, wrong UV bulbs, wrong basking bulbs, letting dogs around your tortoise, small enclosures, open topped enclosures, sand or soil substrates, bad vet care or advice, too much outside time for little babies, keeping a pair of tortoises in the same enclosure...

Heating And Lighting:
I use a 45-65 watt incandescent flood bulb on a 12 hour timer and adjust the height of the fixture to get a basking area of around 95-100 directly under the bulb. In some closed chambers I go with lower wattage bulbs. This depends on many factors and no one can tell you exactly what wattage you will need in your enclosure. Let your thermometer be your guide. I use a ceramic heating element or a radiant heat panel set to 80 degrees on a reptile thermostat to maintain my ambient temperature in the enclosure. The basking lamp should raise the day time ambient temperature into the high 80s or low 90s. Ambient should be no lower than 80, but drifting up to 90 during the heat of the day is good. The thermostat will keep your CHE or RHP off during these times, but ready to click on after the basking lamp clicks off and the ambient temperature starts to drop at night. I use LED bulbs when I want to brighten up the whole enclosure and I run these on the same timer as the basking bulb. There are other ways to do some of this, but trial and error have shown time and time again, that the above is what works the best. Don't use "spot" bulbs, reptile specialty bulbs, halogen bulbs, any cfl, or mercury vapor bulbs. You want a plain old, regular incandescent flood bulb from the hardware store. I buy them in six or twelve packs, so I always have extras on hand. They always go out at the most inopportune times.

UV:
Tortoises need regular exposure to the right kind of UV rays in order to make vitamin D2 into D3 to be able to utilize dietary calcium. Real sunshine is best, but be careful. Shade should always be available as babies can overheat and die surprisingly quickly. If your tortoise can get some regular sunning time in a safe outdoor enclosure, even just a couple of times a week for most of the year, you don't need any artificial UV. Its okay if you have to skip two or three weeks of sunning time during a cold winter spell. If you live somewhere with long frozen winters, then some artificial UV might be in order for that time of year. I no longer recommend mercury vapor bulbs for several reasons, but florescent HO (High Output) UV tubes work very well according to my UV meter. CFL type UV bulbs are ineffective as UV sources and sometime burn reptile eyes. No type of compact florescent bulb should be used over a tortoise. Also get yourself a Solarmeter 6.5. Without a UV meter, you are guessing about the UV levels in your enclosure, no different than guessing the temperature without a thermometer. At least without a thermometer you can still feel the temperature with your hand. You can't feel UV levels. These meters pay for themselves in short order since you won't be replacing perfectly good working bulbs every six months, as the sellers recommend.

Too much outside time is bad for babies. It slows their growth tremendously and causes pyramiding. I've done many side-by-side experiments with clutch mates over the years to determine this fact. My general rule is an hour of access to sunshine per inch of tortoise. Once they reach around 5 inches, outside all day is fine, weather permitting, but soak daily and continue to let them sleep in their humid closed chamber every night until they get a bit bigger.

The Enclosure:
I have not been able to make any open topped enclosure work to my satisfaction. Low sided open topped enclosures like tortoise tables and sweater boxes are the worst. No amount of covering, or attempts to slow heat and humidity loss have worked well for me. There is just no way to keep the warm humid air where you want it. Closed chambers are the way to go. Maintaining whatever temperature and humidity you want is easy and efficient in a closed chamber. They use a lot less electricity because all of your heat and humidity is contained with nowhere to go. It also makes maintaining warm night temps a snap. Open tops allow all your warm humid air to escape up and into the room where your enclosure sits. Even if you cover most of the top, the heat lamps create a chimney effect and draw your heat and humidity up and out. Having the heat lamps outside, or on top of, the enclosure also lets the majority of the electrically generated heat you are creating float up up and away. A closed chamber contains all the heat and humidity. It works best if all the heating and lighting equipment is INSIDE the enclosure with the tortoise. Any other way is a compromise and less than ideal. Maintaining a small open topped box at 80 degrees with 80% humidity in a regular sized room that is 70 degrees and 20% humidity is VERY difficult, if not impossible in a practical sense. A closed chamber makes it easy.
Here are pictures of the plain basic closed chambers that I use to start babies:
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You can make it much more fancy and add plants and decorations if you want. I'm going for simplicity and I spend time making their outdoor enclosures more fantastic. When done correctly, your baby will only be in this enclosure for a year or two, and then it will be time to move outside full time with a heated night box, or get much larger indoor accommodations if this is what your climate dictates.

What if you already bought a glass tank or wooden tortoise enclosure? How can you make that one work? You really can't. Covering the top and trying to contain the heat and humidity is better than nothing, but the sooner you resign yourself to buying or building the right kind of enclosure, the sooner you and your tortoise will reap the benefits. Almost everyone gets bad info from the breeder, pet store, vets, and all over the internet. I'm sorry this happens and sorry you bought all the wrong stuff, but it helps no one when a person keeps trying to jam that square peg into a round hole. Think it over, take a deep breath, and just go get the correct stuff now that you know. I encourage people to return the items to the pet shop and tell them why. Eventually they will learn and stop selling dangerous, bad, and useless items to people.

You need to know, and periodically adjust your temperatures. You need to regularly check warm side, cool side, basking spot and night temps, and adjust as needed. Every enclosure is different and they even change with the seasons in most households. It is not enough to screw a bulb in and walk away. Check those temps, and make adjustments, preferably BEFORE the baby even comes home. I like to use an infrared temp gun AND digital thermometers for this purpose. Check your temps early and often.

Enclosure Size:
Simply put: The bigger the better. I start babies in a 30x48 inch closed chamber. As a minimum, I would suggest no smaller than 36"x18" for a tiny hatchling, but you'll need to upgrade quickly. They need room to roam around. Once you put in the food and water bowls, the humid hide, and any decorations or potted plants, there is hardly any room left over to walk. Tortoises do not tend to do as well as some other types of reptiles when stuffed into small enclosures. They need room to roam inside their safe heated enclosures, and the floor is not a safe option. Don't think that you'll use a smaller enclosure, and just let Sheldon out to roam the floor for some exercise. This almost always ends in disaster. Its bad for your tortoise and impaction, sickness, injury, or death is the usual result. "But, but, but... I make it safe and supervise closely..." says every person until the day that disaster eventually strikes and they realize they were wrong. Its a terrible sickening feeling to hold a dead tortoise in your hand. Don't put yourself through this. Make a large enclosure. Don't have room for a large enclosure? Get a different pet that can live in a smaller enclosure that you have room for. Tortoises aren't good pets for everyone. For a sulcata, even 4x8' is only going to last a year or two. You might get three years with it for a star, leopard or slower growing sulcata, but that is optimistic. Outdoor enclosures can be even larger. Babies will NOT get lost or overwhelmed in 10x10 foot enclosure. In the wild they roam far greater distances than that.

Humid Hide Boxes:
This offers the tortoise a more humid place to retreat to and sleep and can simulate some of the more damp micro-climates they might utilize in the wild. It is as simple as getting a $2 black dishwashing tub from Walmart, flipping it upside down and cutting out a small door hole. I keep the substrate under the tub more damp than the surrounding substrate and it works great. You can also use plastic shoe boxes. Sphagnum moss is unnecessary and potentially dangerous since they eat it, and it can cause an impaction. The humid hide is a very important detail that should not be overlooked. Half logs and flower pots on their sides do not work. They are not closed in enough.

Substrate:
There are only three viable options. Coco coir, orchid bark, and cypress mulch. All of these can be purchased in bulk at most hardware or garden center stores at a tremendous savings. I don't like coco coir for these species because its too messy. I don't like cypress mulch because the pieces aren't uniform, some pieces are too big or too sharp, and because it smells like the swamp that is came from. If these two are all you can find, then go ahead and use them. They are safe and suitable. Fine grade orchid bark works the best. Its cheap, easy, holds moisture well, doesn't stink, easy to clean, easy for babies to walk on, not an ingestion hazard, etc... I recommend against any store bought soil, "Pets At Home" reptile bedding with the little white limestone bits in it, wood shavings or chips, ground walnut shell, corn cob bedding, rabbit pellets, compressed grass pellet bedding, newspaper pellets, hay, cedar, or any amount of sand. None of those are safe or suitable for an indoor tortoise enclosure.

Water Dishes:
Plain old terra cotta plant saucers work best. They come in a variety of sizes to suit any size tortoise, they offer good traction to little wet tortoise feet, they have low sides, they are cheap so you can buy extras, and they are shallow so your tortoise won't drown if it happens to flip over and land upside down in the water bowl. Sink the bowl into the substrate for best results. I prefer to give babies two water bowls. Do NOT use the typical ramped pet store bowls. These are great for snakes and lizards, but they can literally be death traps for tortoises. Clean your terra cotta saucer as often as needed. The more they track food and substrate into it, and the more they poop in it, the better. This means they are comfortable using their bowl, and that is great news. Just rinse and refill as many times a day as you need to. A water bowl that stays clean and untouched all day is a water bowl that is not being used for one reason or another. This is a bad sign, and it means your tortoise is one step closer to dehydration.

Soaking:
I recommend ALL hatchlings of ALL species be soaked in 85-95 degree water for at least 20-30 minutes every day. I use a tall sided opaque tub and keep the water depth about a third to half way up the body. If you have a humid enclosure with a humid hide and a water bowl, it is totally fine to skip a day here and there. Soaking only once a week and using a dry enclosure is not enough in my opinion, and I would not buy a hatchling that had been started that way. Once the tortoise gets to about 100 grams, I start skipping a day now and then. I gradually taper it down as they gain size. How often I soak older tortoises depends on a lot of factors, the current weather and season being two big ones. I soak more often when its hot and dry. If you live in a warm, humid, rainy climate, and your tortoise is exposed to these conditions, soaking less often is probably fine, but it still wont hurt anything to do it. You cannot soak too much or for too long. Soaking does not do any harm whatsoever. It doesn't make them poop too much and not digest their food, it doesn't upset their "water balance", whatever that is, it doesn't give them shell rot or respiratory infections, and it is NOT unnatural in any way. "But, but, but... Who soaks them every day in nature???" These babies hatch at the start of the RAINY season in the wild. Its raining on them frequently, and puddles form all over the place. Keep the soak water warm for the entire soak. If you are in a hurry, 10 minutes is enough. If you are forgetful or get distracted, an hour will do no harm.

Feeding:
So much contradictory info on this subject. Its simple. What do they eat in the wild. Grass, weeds, leaves, flowers, and succulents. Feed them a huge variety of these things, and you'll have a healthy tortoise. All of these species are very adaptable when it comes to diet and there is a very large margin of error, and many ways to do it right. What if you don't have this sort of "natural" tortoise food available for part of each year because you are in the snow? You will have no choice but to buy grocery store food. What's wrong with grocery store food? It tends to lack fiber, some items are low in calcium or have a poor calcium to phosphorous ratio, and some items have deleterious compounds in them. All of these short comings can be improved with some simple supplementation and amendments. A pinch of calcium two times per week will help fix that problem. You can also leave cuttle bone in the enclosure, so your tortoise can self-regulate its own calcium intake. What about fiber? Soaked horse hay pellets, soaked ZooMed Grassland pellets, Mazuri tortoise chow, "Salad style", "Herbal Hay" both from @TylerStewart and his lovely wife Sarah at Tortoisesupply.com, or many of the dried plants and leaves available from Will @Kapidolo Farms. If you must use grocery store foods, favor endive and escarole as your main staples. Add in arugula, cilantro, kale, collard, mustard and turnip greens, squash leaves, spring mix, romaine, green or red leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, water cress, carrot tops, celery tops, bok choy, and whatever other greens you can find. If you mix in some of the aforementioned amendments, these grocery store foods will offer plenty of variety and fiber and be able to meet your tortoises nutritional needs just fine. I find it preferable to grab a few grapevine or mulberry leaves, or a handful of mallow and clover, or some broadleaf plantain leaves and some grass, but with the right additions, grocery store stuff is fine too. Grow your own stuff, or find it around you when possible. Tyler and Sarah also sell a fantastic Testudo seed mix that is great for ALL tortoise species and also super easy to grow in pots, trays, raised garden beds, or in outdoor tortoise enclosures. When that isn't possible, add a wide variety of good stuff to your grocery store greens to make them better.

Supplements:
I recommend you keep cuttle bone available all the time. Some never use it and some munch on it regularly. Some of mine will go months without touching it, and then suddenly eat the whole thing in a day or two. Sulcatas and leopards grow a lot. This requires a tremendous amount of calcium assimilation over time. A great diet is paramount, but it is still a good idea to give them some extra calcium regularly. I use a tiny pinch of RepCal or ZooMed plain old calcium carbonate twice a week. Much discussion has been given to whether or not they need D3 in their calcium supplement. Personally, I don't think it matters. Every tortoise should be getting adequate UV exposure one way or another, so they should be able to make their own D3. I also like to use a mineral supplement. "MinerAll" is my current brand of choice. It seems to help those tortoises that like to swallow pebbles and rocks. It is speculated that some tortoise eat rocks or substrate due to a mineral deficiency or imbalance. Whatever the reason, "MinerAll" seems to stop it or prevent it. Finally, I like to use a reptile vitamin supplement once a week, to round out any hidden deficiencies that may be in my diet over the course of a year.

Outdoor Enclosures:
This is a MUST in my opinion. Tortoises are solar powered, need lots of walking room, and benefit greatly from some time in the great outdoors. With hatchlings I start with short excursions of only an hour a day, followed by a soak on the way in. As they gain size, I like to leave them out longer and longer each day, weather permitting, until they eventually live outside full time with a heated night box of some sort, where climate allows. Outside time must be done with great care as there are many dangers. They can overheat, be eaten or mauled, or escape. Here is one simple idea. A large kiddie pool or horse watering trough could also work. If you don't have a suitable grassy area, you can put a plywood bottom on this with wheels and legs, and move it around. Do NOT let your baby roam free outside. You will lose it eventually, and you'll be unable to explain how it happened so fast when you were watching so carefully. Its a sickening feeling. Don't put yourself through this. Use an enclosure and make it large. Also, if you have a dog, or people who come to visit bring a dog, your tortoise is in grave danger. Be careful. EVERY dog will chew up a tortoise. It doesn't matter how nice and loving a dog it is. Tortoises are seen as chew toys by dogs. Don't let this happen to your tortoise. Physically prevent it with fencing and/or correct housing. Don't leave it to chance. It is a horrible sickening feeling holding a mauled tortoise in your hands. Don't put yourself through this.
View attachment 291555

Pyramiding:
This is the subject of many threads in itself. I will simply state here what I know to be true based on my experience, my experiments, conversations with people who live other countries and study tortoises, people who have kept them for decades here in the U.S., and personal observations of thousands of tortoises in all manners of keeping styles.

There are many things listed as causes of pyramiding. I can refute each one with multiple examples. Lack of UV, lack of calcium, too much protein, too much food, the wrong foods, fast growth, wrong temperatures, small enclosures, not enough exercise, indoor housing, etc. None of these factors CAUSES pyramiding. They can all be somehow related to it, but they don't cause it. Simply put: Pyramiding is caused by growth in conditions that are too dry. This is true for any species of tortoise, even the ones that don't typically pyramid. To prevent pyramiding I use a closed chamber and keep the ambient temperature 80 or higher all the time, I keep humidity at 80% or higher, I offer a humid hide that holds 95-100% humidity, I soak daily to ensure good hydration, and I spray the carapace with plain water several times a day. Sulcatas hatch during the African rainy season. It is hot, humid, rainy and marshy. It makes no sense to keep them in a dry box, with dry substrate, and a hot desiccating bulb overhead. Simulating this rainy season has grown me hundreds of smooth leopard and sulcata babies, as well as a few other species too. There are literally thousands of examples of other people succeeding using the same basic philosophy here on this forum. So please, don't keep sulcatas and leopards in desert-style enclosures. It is not healthy for them. They are not the least bit prone to shell rot, like some other species are, and they DO NOT get respiratory infections from high humidity as long as temps are 80 or higher everywhere in the enclosure, day and night. I don't say these things and come up with these assertions lightly. Its not that I raised one tortoise this way, and everything went okay. I have literally raised hundreds of tortoises of multiple species this way and had nothing but success. My methods and success rate have been repeated by thousands of tortoise keepers all over the globe. We have more than 10 years of living healthy examples to back up these assertions.

If you want to prevent pyramiding, simply do the above stuff.
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Questions and conversation are welcome. The goal here is to help people to have happy, healthy, long lived tortoises and avoid some common mistakes.

Hi Tom,

Thank you for this post, I wish I had seen it a month or two ago. About 7 weeks ago, I had a sulcata tortoise wonder onto my driveway. I ended up keeping him as all immediate neighbors said he wasn't theirs and I have a good amount of grassy land. About two weeks after that, another one around the same size showed up in almost the same spot but she had an injury to her plastron like she was chewed up. She also had a rubber balloon stuck to her hand from heat that finally came off after multiple soakings. It was kind of a weird situation since they're obviously not native to California. Anyway, took them in for a vet visit and now I've been trying to figure out how to best care for them and with all of the conflicting information between the internet and vets, its been confusing. Because of their size, they are assumed to be about a year old (please let me know if that's wrong).

Photo of them about a month ago:


Their enclosure: This was what it looked like at first but now the grass has been replaced with the substrate and so of course the white and inside has dirt and hay tracked around now.

I originally bought this enclosure for them since they're still pretty small and have plans to extend our garden where we grew vegetables before and make an enclosure for them outside when they get bigger. I have a little hay in the hide on the second floor, substrate on the bottom, and a pool of shallow water on the bottom. We keep it outside and I monitor the temperature frequently throughout the day. Currently, they sleep in the house in a wood box through the night where the temperature is 80 F with no light. At about 10am, I take them outside either in the two-story enclosure or a kiddie pool with substrate and feed them. I sprinkle reptile calcium powder over the food. I was doing it 4x a week but after reading your post, I will start doing it 2x a week and providing them with a cuttlebone. The kiddie pool has things for them to hide under, a cover made of chicken wire, a shallow pool, and then flat thin pieces of wood or other things on top to ensure further shade. The substrate is a mixture of hay and coconut coir. I only recently started using coconut coir but noticed that it raised the humidity significantly, sometimes above the temperature. I was told never to let the humidity go above the temperature because of respiratory infections. Once the sun goes down (around 8pm), I bring them in and soak them in warm warm water for about 15 minutes (nearly every single day). Then put them in the wood box to sleep where I also monitor the temperature at 80 F. It's been really hot lately and so when the temperature gets to 92 F, I would bring them in but the temperature inside would be usually 74-80 F. I'm not sure if this is unnecessary. I am currently alternating their food in a variety of: red leaf lettuce, kale, squash, cucumber, collard greens, mustard greens, dandelions, dandelion leaf, and bok choy. I plan to add minerall and vitamin supplements, dried hibiscus flowers, and other dried leafs to the mix soon.

I apologize for bombarding you with a list of questions, I just want to hone their environment to be the best that it can be for them:

1. Are these enclosures suitable until they outgrow them?
2. Could this temp change result in a respiratory infection?
3. At what temperature would be too hot for them, even in the shade?
4. How can I get the humidity to a healthy and consistent % while outside and inside? It's usually between 34-64% but was in the 80's and 90's after the coconut coir was added. I'm not too sure how to feel about the coconut coir just yet because it feels so wet. Looking into the orchid bark but cant find the fine one.
5. To transition them to be outside full time (like through the night), would I have to build a closed chamber with adequate heat through the night using bulbs/panels all throughout the night to maintain at least 80 F temp?
6. The first tortoise was only slightly smaller than the second tortoise but now he has grown noticeably bigger than her. Is this normal and what could be the cause for this? I noticed the bigger tortoise eats more and immediately after I give the food but there is always leftover food so I know there is enough for her to get to as well. (The gender of the tortoises are very loosely assumed.)
7. Would the temperature have to be in the 70's F and humidity above 85 for this to be dangerous?
8. Since they both have had pyramiding upon their discovery, how long should it take for them to round out ounce I master their humidity?
9. Is it normal for vets to charge $200 just for the exam fee? I live in LA County and that hefty fee seems pretty standard for exotics here but it still feels outrageous so I'm curious if I'm getting played.

 

[Tom]

Hi Tom,

Thank you for this post, I wish I had seen it a month or two ago. About 7 weeks ago, I had a sulcata tortoise wonder onto my driveway. I ended up keeping him as all immediate neighbors said he wasn't theirs and I have a good amount of grassy land. About two weeks after that, another one around the same size showed up in almost the same spot but she had an injury to her plastron like she was chewed up. She also had a rubber balloon stuck to her hand from heat that finally came off after multiple soakings. It was kind of a weird situation since they're obviously not native to California. Anyway, took them in for a vet visit and now I've been trying to figure out how to best care for them and with all of the conflicting information between the internet and vets, its been confusing. Because of their size, they are assumed to be about a year old (please let me know if that's wrong).

Photo of them about a month ago:
View attachment 375893

Their enclosure: This was what it looked like at first but now the grass has been replaced with the substrate and so of course the white and inside has dirt and hay tracked around now. View attachment 375894

I originally bought this enclosure for them since they're still pretty small and have plans to extend our garden where we grew vegetables before and make an enclosure for them outside when they get bigger. I have a little hay in the hide on the second floor, substrate on the bottom, and a pool of shallow water on the bottom. We keep it outside and I monitor the temperature frequently throughout the day. Currently, they sleep in the house in a wood box through the night where the temperature is 80 F with no light. At about 10am, I take them outside either in the two-story enclosure or a kiddie pool with substrate and feed them. I sprinkle reptile calcium powder over the food. I was doing it 4x a week but after reading your post, I will start doing it 2x a week and providing them with a cuttlebone. The kiddie pool has things for them to hide under, a cover made of chicken wire, a shallow pool, and then flat thin pieces of wood or other things on top to ensure further shade. The substrate is a mixture of hay and coconut coir. I only recently started using coconut coir but noticed that it raised the humidity significantly, sometimes above the temperature. I was told never to let the humidity go above the temperature because of respiratory infections. Once the sun goes down (around 8pm), I bring them in and soak them in warm warm water for about 15 minutes (nearly every single day). Then put them in the wood box to sleep where I also monitor the temperature at 80 F. It's been really hot lately and so when the temperature gets to 92 F, I would bring them in but the temperature inside would be usually 74-80 F. I'm not sure if this is unnecessary. I am currently alternating their food in a variety of: red leaf lettuce, kale, squash, cucumber, collard greens, mustard greens, dandelions, dandelion leaf, and bok choy. I plan to add minerall and vitamin supplements, dried hibiscus flowers, and other dried leafs to the mix soon.

I apologize for bombarding you with a list of questions, I just want to hone their environment to be the best that it can be for them:

1. Are these enclosures suitable until they outgrow them?
2. Could this temp change result in a respiratory infection?
3. At what temperature would be too hot for them, even in the shade?
4. How can I get the humidity to a healthy and consistent % while outside and inside? It's usually between 34-64% but was in the 80's and 90's after the coconut coir was added. I'm not too sure how to feel about the coconut coir just yet because it feels so wet. Looking into the orchid bark but cant find the fine one.
5. To transition them to be outside full time (like through the night), would I have to build a closed chamber with adequate heat through the night using bulbs/panels all throughout the night to maintain at least 80 F temp?
6. The first tortoise was only slightly smaller than the second tortoise but now he has grown noticeably bigger than her. Is this normal and what could be the cause for this? I noticed the bigger tortoise eats more and immediately after I give the food but there is always leftover food so I know there is enough for her to get to as well. (The gender of the tortoises are very loosely assumed.)
7. Would the temperature have to be in the 70's F and humidity above 85 for this to be dangerous?
8. Since they both have had pyramiding upon their discovery, how long should it take for them to round out ounce I master their humidity?
9. Is it normal for vets to charge $200 just for the exam fee? I live in LA County and that hefty fee seems pretty standard for exotics here but it still feels outrageous so I'm curious if I'm getting played.

Hello and welcome! I'll answer your questions one at a time:
1. Better to have a large open pen with sun and shade and a heated night box connected to it. This enclosure is more suitable for a rabbit.
2. Keep the tortoise over 80 day and night. Set the night box temperature to 80, and you won't have a respiratory infection. High humidity is beneficial and will not make your tortoises sick. Its fine to let them out on warm sunny days in winter when temps are below 70 as long as they can get back in the box to warm up as needed.
3. Over 100 degrees is getting too warm. On the other hand, they live outdoors in Phoenix where its 118 every day in summer, and they are fine. If its in the low 80s, a tortoise can overheat and die in full sun. They MUST have extensive, deep shade in hot weather. Under ground burrows in summer time are even better. You can encourage them to dig by starting a burrow for them where you want it. Got a shovel?
4. Tortoises this size living outside don't need substrate. Just let them live on the ground, either grass or dirt. High humidity is natural and good for this species. They hatch at the start of the hot wet rainy humid monsoon season over there. That info you found is old wrong info.
5. You need an insulated heated night box. Like this:

Single Tortoise Night Box

I like my larger tortoises to live outside full time. My climate permits this year round with a little help. For people who live where it snows all winter, this type of box is still good for warmer weather, getting them out earlier in Spring, and keeping them out a bit later into fall. You'll...

tortoiseforum.org

Or this:

Double Door Night Box

As the years have gone by and I build more of these boxes, I learn more and more each time. This one is the latest and I incorporated everything I've learned over the years. I also tried to take lots of pics so I can explain in more detail some of what is going on. It will take multiple posts to...

tortoiseforum.org

6. Many possible explanations, but this is normal, and it is likely the result of living together. Tortoises should never be kept in pairs. Not at any age, and sexes don't matter. Groups can work, but not pairs.
7. Already answered. High humidity is good for them. Low temperatures are bad for them. Keep the tortoises accommodations above 80 and 100% humidity day and night wold be great for them.
8. The current pyramiding will never go away. With the right care, the new growth should come in smoother over time.
9. Vet costs have skyrocketed since covid, while service and appointment availability have plummeted. Welcome to the new America. Few vets know much about tortoises. I only know of one in the L.A. area that is good. If there are others, I have not discovered them yet. $200 per tortoise seems high for an exam fee, but it also depends on the area. The rent and government taxes and fees in some areas are astronomical. Those costs get passed on to the customer, or the business closes. I don't know of any vets getting rich with these high prices. Most are just getting by like the rest of us.

 

[ExoticsinMay]

Hello and welcome! I'll answer your questions one at a time:
1. Better to have a large open pen with sun and shade and a heated night box connected to it. This enclosure is more suitable for a rabbit.
2. Keep the tortoise over 80 day and night. Set the night box temperature to 80, and you won't have a respiratory infection. High humidity is beneficial and will not make your tortoises sick. Its fine to let them out on warm sunny days in winter when temps are below 70 as long as they can get back in the box to warm up as needed.
3. Over 100 degrees is getting too warm. On the other hand, they live outdoors in Phoenix where its 118 every day in summer, and they are fine. If its in the low 80s, a tortoise can overheat and die in full sun. They MUST have extensive, deep shade in hot weather. Under ground burrows in summer time are even better. You can encourage them to dig by starting a burrow for them where you want it. Got a shovel?
4. Tortoises this size living outside don't need substrate. Just let them live on the ground, either grass or dirt. High humidity is natural and good for this species. They hatch at the start of the hot wet rainy humid monsoon season over there. That info you found is old wrong info.
5. You need an insulated heated night box. Like this:

Single Tortoise Night Box

I like my larger tortoises to live outside full time. My climate permits this year round with a little help. For people who live where it snows all winter, this type of box is still good for warmer weather, getting them out earlier in Spring, and keeping them out a bit later into fall. You'll...

tortoiseforum.org

Or this:

Double Door Night Box

As the years have gone by and I build more of these boxes, I learn more and more each time. This one is the latest and I incorporated everything I've learned over the years. I also tried to take lots of pics so I can explain in more detail some of what is going on. It will take multiple posts to...

tortoiseforum.org

6. Many possible explanations, but this is normal, and it is likely the result of living together. Tortoises should never be kept in pairs. Not at any age, and sexes don't matter. Groups can work, but not pairs.
7. Already answered. High humidity is good for them. Low temperatures are bad for them. Keep the tortoises accommodations above 80 and 100% humidity day and night wold be great for them.
8. The current pyramiding will never go away. With the right care, the new growth should come in smoother over time.
9. Vet costs have skyrocketed since covid, while service and appointment availability have plummeted. Welcome to the new America. Few vets know much about tortoises. I only know of one in the L.A. area that is good. If there are others, I have not discovered them yet. $200 per tortoise seems high for an exam fee, but it also depends on the area. The rent and government taxes and fees in some areas are astronomical. Those costs get passed on to the customer, or the business closes. I don't know of any vets getting rich with these high prices. Most are just getting by like the rest of us.

Hi Tom,

Thank you so much for your patient and organized response, I'm about to head out to get the supplies to build a new enclosure set up.

This morning, I noticed one of the tortoises has bubble/fluid coming out of her nose and a slight squeak. I separated them and made sure the temperature in their enclosures are at least 85, a patch of direct sunlight and plenty of shade and access to water. I was looking around on the forum and saw mixed opinions about vets and antibiotics immediately. I did call around and was able to find an emergency vet that said they could see the tort today. I spoke with their vet and she said the sulcata will most likely hide in her shell and she wont be able to see anything but she will prescribe antibiotics (and enough for the other tort) if I brought her in for about $325. I was also recommended a vet where the exam fee is $60 but the earliest possible appointment would be Friday the 9th and I'm not sure if that is too long of a wait. What do you think?

 

[Tom]

Hi Tom,

Thank you so much for your patient and organized response, I'm about to head out to get the supplies to build a new enclosure set up.

This morning, I noticed one of the tortoises has bubble/fluid coming out of her nose and a slight squeak. I separated them and made sure the temperature in their enclosures are at least 85, a patch of direct sunlight and plenty of shade and access to water. I was looking around on the forum and saw mixed opinions about vets and antibiotics immediately. I did call around and was able to find an emergency vet that said they could see the tort today. I spoke with their vet and she said the sulcata will most likely hide in her shell and she wont be able to see anything but she will prescribe antibiotics (and enough for the other tort) if I brought her in for about $325. I was also recommended a vet where the exam fee is $60 but the earliest possible appointment would be Friday the 9th and I'm not sure if that is too long of a wait. What do you think?

The bubbles indicate the start of a respiratory infection. The vast majority of the time this is due to cold temperatures, especially at night. The best solution to this problem caused by cold is heat. Vets and harsh medicines are a last resort after it progresses. Stress, like from living in a pair, can also hamper the immune system and make them more susceptible. Keep the tortoises no lower than 85 degrees day and night for at least two weeks until after symptoms disappear. This means the entire enclosure. The coldest corner farthest from any heat source needs to be 85. Its best if ambient temps climb into the low 90s during the day. Humidity doesn't matter in this regard, but high humidity is good for them and will help prevent dehydration with these higher temps.

This is a big problem with many reptile vets: They treat the symptoms and never even address or consider the CAUSE of the sickness. You can go pay $1000 to a vet and shoot up all sorts of medicines, and it won't do any good at all if you don't first correct the CAUSE of the problem. In many cases, if you correct the cause, the symptoms correct themselves with no meds.

 

[ExoticsinMay]

The bubbles indicate the start of a respiratory infection. The vast majority of the time this is due to cold temperatures, especially at night. The best solution to this problem caused by cold is heat. Vets and harsh medicines are a last resort after it progresses. Stress, like from living in a pair, can also hamper the immune system and make them more susceptible. Keep the tortoises no lower than 85 degrees day and night for at least two weeks until after symptoms disappear. This means the entire enclosure. The coldest corner farthest from any heat source needs to be 85. Its best if ambient temps climb into the low 90s during the day. Humidity doesn't matter in this regard, but high humidity is good for them and will help prevent dehydration with these higher temps.

This is a big problem with many reptile vets: They treat the symptoms and never even address or consider the CAUSE of the sickness. You can go pay $1000 to a vet and shoot up all sorts of medicines, and it won't do any good at all if you don't first correct the CAUSE of the problem. In many cases, if you correct the cause, the symptoms correct themselves with no meds.

Super insightful, you have no idea how much I appreciate you. About to head out & I for once feel like I know exactly what I need to go get and do.