The Waffle House

[leash_wish]

Thought I would post a pic of Waffles house. It's an under the bed storage container. I forget the name of the wood chips but it was one of the recommended ones from the site. The left is a basking light and the right is a uv light. A water dish and a food dish. His sleeping hut and of course his "girlfriend", a hedgehog make of sticks. He loves to cuddle into his hog.

 

[wellington]

The water dish is too small and if you don't cover the enclosure she will pyramid. Temps not lower then 80 with a humidity of 80%.
Read Toms threads below in my post for raising a smooth healthy sulcata.

 

[Tom]

A few points for you:

The cypress mulch should work fine.

Barb is right about the water bowl. Get a terra cotta plant saucer from a hardware store and sink it into the substrate.

Your little green hut is fine, but your baby really needs a proper humid hide.

What sort of lighting are you using? I don't like those red lights, they make things look funny to the tortoises. Is your UV bulb one of those coil type florescent bulbs? Those can burn their eyes. I like to use regular household flood bulbs for basking heat. If your tortoise gets sunshine a couple of times a week, you don't need artificial UV. If you live in the frozen north, then I think the mercury vapor bulbs will best serve your needs.

The sweater box enclosure with the low sides is about the worst possible way to house a baby sulcata. You need to be simulating the warm, wet, humid, African rainy season. This is impossible to do in a low sided open topped enclosure in a dry cool house with either heat or A/C running all the time. The warm humid air that they need simply drifts up and away onto the room. Your baby will pyramid in a set up like this, especially without a humid hide. Closed chambers work best. They make it easy to maintain perfect conditions and use very little electricity in comparison to an open topped enclosure. Here is a thread explaining it all.
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread-32333.html

Pease read the threads in my signature. They will help you and your tortoise.

 

[leash_wish]

The lights aren't red, it's just how it looks in the pic. The basking light an uv light are natural in their colour. A lid goes on the container in the evening to help keep in the humidity. I also keep the wood moist by adding water but not soaking it. He also gets his soaks in his tub. I will get a new water dish for sure. I didn't want to get anything too big or too deep for fear he would get stuck and drown.

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Oh, the pic was taken at night with no other lights on in the room and no flash. He gets a lot of natural light during the day but got one just incase.

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Just saw your tortoise home and it makes sense now that I see it. I am a more visual person. I saved it for reference

 

[Tom]

What do you do for night heat with the lid on? How do you keep humidity up during the day with no lid?

What type of bulb is your UV light?

When you say natural light, do you mean through windows? Light is good, but the glass filters out nearly all the UV.

I know that nobody wants to hear that their set up is all wrong. I know that doesn't make you feel good, but let me tell you from lots of first hand experience what feels far worse. Causing your baby to grow up disfigured because you didn't provide the correct conditions. I've done it many times in years past and that's how I know you will be doing it too, if you don't change that enclosure. There is no way to simulate the warm humid conditions that are necessary for smooth growth in a low sided open topped tub, unless that whole room is kept at 80 degrees all the time, and humid. The air in the room will be the same air in the enclosure, and that will cause your baby to pyramid.

I realize I do not have the best bedside manner. I hope that someone else will follow me and say the same thing in a much more palatable way, but please don't ignore the message because the messenger is too blunt.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Thanks for sharing pictures of the house you have made for your tortoise!

The best thing about this forum, we are ALL turtle and tortoise LOVERS!!! We care about each and every one of them and will do our best to share knowledge we have learned so that everyone's shelled buddy can have the best possible.

Tom has given you great points for improving Waffle's House. (I kept skipping over this thread thinking it was post about a restaurant..lol. "The Waffle House" is cute)

The UV lights that fit into the lamp you are using have been known to cause eye issues in reptiles.

Weigh the pros and cons to that. Pro- they get some UV rays. Con- waffles may go blind.

Another preferred option is the UV strip lighting. Pro- they get some UV rays, no eye risks. Con-you have to spend some $ to buy it.

I used to use a tub as a closed chamber for my leopard. I raised it the same way Tom raised his sulcata. High heat, high humidity. It had taller sides and I left the lid on full time. I cut out holes where the basking light/night time CHE went. Eventually I was given a glass tank and switched to that...

Being here means that you care about Waffles. We do, too so we hope to come alongside you in getting things just perfect for him

 

[Steve_McQueen]

Listen to the above advice, it's all spot on.

 

[leash_wish]

Thank everyone

 

[Tom]

I had a thought:

My friend raised some hatchlings in an enclosure identical to yours. Same exact tub and same substrate. He actually lived in a very humid area and his tortoises got out for sun pretty regularly. I'll take some pics in profile of how his tortoises turned out and then some pics of tortoise raised in a closed chamber. Not a perfect comparison, but it will demonstrate what I'm trying to explain.

 

[Eloise's mommy]

I would like to see a pic of waffles cuddling his girlfriend.

I don't have a Sulcata I have a RT, but I enjoy reading about Sulcatas and everytime I read a post about a new Sulcata owner's First Sulcata enclosure that includes those low sided tubs Tom (who has given me great advice before and seems very well respected around here) and many others will always give the advice above. The threads are at just about every Sulcata owners posts in their signature and I am confident that following the advice of the forum members with the most experience has made my new adventure less scary with my Eloise. You will be a great tort owner and I'm sure like the rest of TFO become addicted to your tortoise and to caring for them!!

Don't forget to get a pic of that baby cuddling that Hog!! lol ;P