I know this is a bit soon to think about but I like to plan ahead you never know if it's going to be 2 or 10 years before we hit this point but I am thinking about how to best prepare for the adult years. I live in Oregon which as everyone knows is less than ideal conditions but with enough money which I have plenty of we can make anything work. Currently I have a 4 bedroom house all single level no stairs. A sizeable fenced in back yard sheds front yard gardens eccetra. I am wondering in a home with hardwood floors and not carpet. Is it necessary at the adult size to keep your tortoise in a warming shed every night or can I just keep him/her indoors with an indoor warm station when neccisary. Obviously I would still have this all set up outdoors for summer but when those winters are exceptionally rough is there any concerns to keep in mind with the indoors. Space isn't a issue here either. We have entire rooms available for proper setup. I have an entire yard and sheds and can built literally anything so if occasional indoors is not recommended best outdoor routes for my climate would be lovely.
Thinking about the future outdoors
- Thread starter DuckieGo
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For an adult sulcata, you'll need an area of about 50x50 feet that is heated so that the floors are 80-85 degrees. If room temp at human head height is 80, it could be as low as 65-70 down on the floor. An insulated floor is a must.
Then the tortoise needs a warmer area to go to and get their core temp above the ambient temp. This is hard to do with large tortoises because heat lamps don't work so well. The beam is too narrowly focused for a large tortoise, and it tends to slow burn their carapace while not effectively warming their core. Some people build a 4x4 night box within the heated area and install a Kane mat and RHP over head set on a thermostat to 90-95ish and the tortoise can go in there to warm up more than the minimum ambient.
If you got a healthy baby and you are raising it in the right growing conditions, it will reach about 1000 grams in its first year, and 10 pounds by the second year. If your baby was dry started, it will grow a little slower in most cases, but some of them really take off once they get healthy and hydrated.
If money is no object, just build him a nice insulated shed. He can have access to outside even on the coldest days, so he can live comfortably in, say, a 10'x10' shed. There are only a few winter days when he has to stay inside. @maggie3fan opens the shed door even when it's snowing. When it's the tortoise's choice to go out and discover it's too cold he's usually happy to go back in and wait it out (a warmer day).
Think and plan for outside housing not inside your home as your sulcata grows. I keep sulcatas and have for 26 years. Now I keep them in the northern neck of Virginia which is east of Washington DC on the Potomac River. I have 5 ranging from 2 to 26 years old and from 8 to 150 pounds in weight. They all live outside all year long. They are all healthy and growing nicely and enjoy the natural sunlight even when it's cold and chilly outside.
I live in Corvallis...this is my tort shed...heated and insulated. The floor is insulated just like Tom said, but I set up that shed years before I knew Tom...the walls ceiling and floor are all insulated. I have a spot in the floor where I can pull out the wet insulation and add new. Frankly having a larger Sulcata in the house is ridiculous. (No meant insult) evidently you've never seen a larger Sulcata urinate. It comes out in a large rush of fluid, a gallon or more and there's force behind it, so it is like an ocean wave. I cannot even imagine what a few months of Sulcata on the wood floor would do to it. Please pay attention here, as every larger Sulcata keeper so far is telling you what would happen. 
I want a horse, I have room for a horse. But I don't have 'enough' room for said horse to be active and healthy, and to me that is exactly what you are talking about doing to that tort.
So in my bathrobe, the rain and barefoot I went out to my shed to show you something more. You know the old saying about a picture being worth a thousand words. Each larger Sulcata, in my personal experience, puts their face in a corner if possible and digs at the floor and walls to "make his bed", or trying to dig a burrow in the wood, it's a wild instinct, but on a wood floor they just dig...it's hard to get the idea but...inside Mary's area the floor and walls are covered in bangs and scratches
those are grooves in the wood floor...here is a wall, made with 3/4" plywood...I will tell you from personal experience...Sulcata will not be a nice quiet tortoise inside, if they want out, they start walking and ramming and butting and banging. My neighbor has complained several times about the noise my tortoises make. my house is farther away from the shed then her's is. OK...here's a section where they have all tried to have a nice bed here...the groves just don't look as bad as they really are.
Oh the wall, 3/4" plywood and my 100+ pounds Sulcata was mad that he couldn't go out so he rammed the wall and made a crack from floor to ceiling. That's how I discovered if I opened the doggie door everyday and he could go check things out, they will settle down inside, but if they want out it would just be impossible to keep a larger Sulcata in your house. Not fair to the tortoise or your house for that matter
I forgot to turn the photo correctly...but you can still see the crack going across...it actually goes up...the duct tape is to help keep out mice, they don't like the sticky...anyway...I'm done, but please please rethink this...this is simply how your walls will look...just scratched and dirty. But in my unhumble opinion, that's really not right to do that to a tortoise. Not right or good...
I want a horse, I have room for a horse. But I don't have 'enough' room for said horse to be active and healthy, and to me that is exactly what you are talking about doing to that tort.
So in my bathrobe, the rain and barefoot I went out to my shed to show you something more. You know the old saying about a picture being worth a thousand words. Each larger Sulcata, in my personal experience, puts their face in a corner if possible and digs at the floor and walls to "make his bed", or trying to dig a burrow in the wood, it's a wild instinct, but on a wood floor they just dig...it's hard to get the idea but...inside Mary's area the floor and walls are covered in bangs and scratches
those are grooves in the wood floor...here is a wall, made with 3/4" plywood...I will tell you from personal experience...Sulcata will not be a nice quiet tortoise inside, if they want out, they start walking and ramming and butting and banging. My neighbor has complained several times about the noise my tortoises make. my house is farther away from the shed then her's is. OK...here's a section where they have all tried to have a nice bed here...the groves just don't look as bad as they really are.
Oh the wall, 3/4" plywood and my 100+ pounds Sulcata was mad that he couldn't go out so he rammed the wall and made a crack from floor to ceiling. That's how I discovered if I opened the doggie door everyday and he could go check things out, they will settle down inside, but if they want out it would just be impossible to keep a larger Sulcata in your house. Not fair to the tortoise or your house for that matter
I forgot to turn the photo correctly...but you can still see the crack going across...it actually goes up...the duct tape is to help keep out mice, they don't like the sticky...anyway...I'm done, but please please rethink this...this is simply how your walls will look...just scratched and dirty. But in my unhumble opinion, that's really not right to do that to a tortoise. Not right or good...
Hey Len...you don't provide them with any heat? You aren't saying they live outside year round with no warming stuff?
"I want a horse, I have room for a horse. But I don't have 'enough' room for said horse to be active and healthy, and to me that is exactly what you are talking about doing to that tort"
I will keep this simple I do not think you read my post properly. I have a sizeable back yard. I have a large home. I now understand indoors is not best and I should build an outdoor structure. As a new tortoise owner ofc questions like the best route during winter I assumed asking is better than research as it has already been established theirs a lot of misinformation out there. It really frustrates users I am sure that every time we ask something something like this comment above occurs. Nothing about my post said I have inadequate space. So to be accused that I would not be capable of providing proper conditions simply based on a way head of time question is relatively silly. I'll just be dropping off this forum. I appreciate everyone who has actually helped me.
I will keep this simple I do not think you read my post properly. I have a sizeable back yard. I have a large home. I now understand indoors is not best and I should build an outdoor structure. As a new tortoise owner ofc questions like the best route during winter I assumed asking is better than research as it has already been established theirs a lot of misinformation out there. It really frustrates users I am sure that every time we ask something something like this comment above occurs. Nothing about my post said I have inadequate space. So to be accused that I would not be capable of providing proper conditions simply based on a way head of time question is relatively silly. I'll just be dropping off this forum. I appreciate everyone who has actually helped me.
This forum has tens of thousands of members all over the world. You aren't going to like what every one of them has to say every time. It would be a shame for you and your tortoise, I might even call it silly, to dismiss the entire forum and leave because of one post from a crazy old lady that you didn't like. (Maggie is a friend, and me calling her a crazy old lady will no doubt make her chuckle...)
Over the years I have been called every name in the book and accused of just about everything short of satanic tortoise rituals. Water off a duck's back. Listen to the posts and people that you like, and dismiss the ones you don't.
Really that's not what I am hearing them saying. Don't go yet.
OK I will read your posts again, but seriously... don't leave because of a minor misunderstanding.
Maddoggy
Active Member
Tom , If you have the time could you explain " dry started" Thanks
Maddoggy
Active Member
Not me !!! I run every issue I have across this forum . I dont wait until its too late . That was the old way and it doesn't work with torts . I found out the hard way. In my opinion these are the best "tortoise minds " on the globe. And learning from the mistakes only makes it easier on me. I like Toms saying about knowledge and wisdom.And Maggie just helped me get a good home for my 11in male sulcata. I think its all good
For decades we all had the wrong idea about how to start baby tortoises. We had all sorts of wrong ideas. A few of us could see that the old advice did not work, but we had not yet figured out why it didn't work and why it produced such dismal results. I started gathering pieces to this puzzle in the late 90s and early 2000's. By 2008, I had the start of the basic concept figured out, and began annual experimentation to test out theories and develop improvements with what I had figured out so far. Many more puzzle pieces came to me from other tortoise keepers from all over the world, as well as some of my own observations and conversations.
The problem is that these old wrong ideas that I was taught so many years ago, are still taught to this day. All the books were/are wrong, and all the people learning from those books teach the same wrong info to everyone else. Its awful. Vets, breeders, pet shops, internet experts, book authors... All of them have it wrong. Literally "dead wrong".
We were incorrectly told that sulcatas are a desert species. Any humidity, and even a water bowl, would cause them to get a respiratory infection. Any dampness would cause shell rot. We were taught to keep them on dry hay, or rabbit pellets with the idea that if they eat these, it won't cause an impaction. We were told to soak them once a week for a few minutes to meet their water requirements. We were incorrectly told that they get all the water they need from their food. We were told that pyramiding is caused by too much protein, too much rich nutritious food, too much food in general, fast growth, lack of calcium, lack of D3, not enough sunshine, etc... All of it was and is WRONG.
Dry started = Baby stays in the incubator on the incubation media with no soaks until it absorbs its yolk sac. Baby is then put into its first enclosure on a dry substrate like rabbit pellets. Soaks are done once a week, if at all. Some people put the babies in outdoor pens all day and sometimes over night too in dry areas like Arizona, but this is bad even in south Florida. The enclosure is open topped and often a low walled shallow tub which creates maximum ventilation and dryness. In some case, with heat lamps, dry substrate and a low shallow tub in a dry house with A/C or winter heat, humidity can be in the single digits. When I see these enclosures I immediately and involuntarily make a face as if I've smelled something revolting and call them "beef jerky makers" out loud. These practices literally kill a large percentage of the babies that hatch annually. The ones that somehow survive end up stunted and pyramided, some worse than others.
Correctly started = Tortoise is rinsed off and soaked in warm water the day it hatches. And they all put their heads down and drink on day one, right out of the egg. The hatchling is then put into a dampened high humidity brooder box with lots of suitable foods to eat, and put back in the incubator, or somewhere similarly warm while they absorb their yolk sac and learn what food is. Every day they get soaked and switched in to a clean brooder box with new and different foods. When the yolk sac is completely absorbed and the umbilical scar completely closed up (usually 7-10 days), then the hatchling is moved to its first enclosure. This first enclosure is a large warm closed chamber with damp substrate and high humidity. I clip a few grape vines, mulberry branches, or lavatera branches and scatter them all around the enclosure so the new hatchlings will have food and cover every where. Babies of tropical species, like sulcatas, hatch at the start of the monsoon season. Hot, humid, rainy, wet, with puddles and marshes forming everywhere. It could not be more opposite than a desert. My enclosures for them simulate this monsoon season, and they thrive and grow smooth.
I live in Southern Oregon as well, my Sulcata just turned 4 and is 36 lbs. he was indoors in the winter until he outgrew his inside closed heated home, we purchased a tough shed that we designed and insulated everything floors included. We made night box inside the shed we added a built heater on a thermostat and a exhaust fan for the summer when our heat is over 100. He also has a fenced in yard to keep him safe. Like Maggie, we open his door the yard every day Sheldon comes out when he chooses to the door is closed every night. We think Sheldon has a great life and he is accustomed to his outside life and is thriving. We would not have been able to do this without the Forum. I do have threads showing the shed build and pics if Sheldon. If you have any questions message me and I would be happy to chat with you
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Maddoggy
Active Member
Tom Thanks for explaining dry started I appreciate the time you take, I am one of the people who was taught wrong.I even read that too much water is harmful to sulcatas. And that their urinary systems cant handle to much fluid intake.
Total hog wash. There is a book called "The Crying Tortoise" about sulcatas that has been out of print for 20 years. My friend Tomas Diagne from Senegal who studies them in the wild was one of the contributors to that book. There are pictures in the book of sulcatas in their seasonal ponds with aquatic vegetation on their backs.
When I started this whole "wet routine" "monsoon season" thing, I had SOOOOOOOOO many people arguing with me telling me I was going to kill them and make them sick and that my methods were "unnatural" since they live in a desert with no water. I kept showing them picture after picture of thriving healthy tortoises. Then after a few more years, I showed pictures of the babies I had hatched from those original wet routine babies. The crazy stuff people were making up was astounding. Human ignorance and pride knows no bounds.
Now, more than a decade down the road, people all over the globe are doing this with every species I can think of in some way or other, and we all get the same positive results.
