Wild Baby Sulcatas

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Tom

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Ana, tell your vet he is dead wrong. I tried the sparse feeding and slow growth method with my current adults. I now have pyramided, 13 year old, micro-sulcatas at 50-60 pounds. By contrast, I fed my well hydrated yearlings "normally" and they grew relatively fast, but totally smooth and healthy.

FADE2BLACK_1973 said:
Tom said:
He said that he did not see them eat, but that it was the rainy season and everything was green and growing in the........................ WAIT FOR IT.......................................... HERE IT COMES............... in the MARSH area!!!!!!!! All four hatchlings were found in a marshy area!!! In disbelief at what I thought I had just heard in broken English, I said, "Marsh, as in wet and muddy?" He said, "Yes. Like a swamp." I swear this is what we each said. I am not making this up. After watching him get all giddy about seeing his first wild hatchlings, HE then watched ME get all giddy about hearing about wild hatchling sulcatas in a FRIGGIN' MARSH!!!

Tom, So your theory that humidity for hatchlings and babies could be right after all. All those who say different and had different theories about pyramiding is caused by diet alone could in fact be wrong? This is how I took it because marshes is very humid and those hatchlings being found there, lives from a humid young life. And like I stated before, wondering if the adult females could be going to the wet marshes (at a certain time of the year, like during the rainy seasons) to nest and lay their eggs. So the hatchlings would hatch and live in the wet marshes. Because they do travel long distances in the wild and this could be a natural instinct to travel to the marshes to lay their eggs. Like seaturtles do in the wild. Go from the ocean to a beach to lay.

Chris I completely fabricated this "sea turtle migration" theory about sulcatas based on what I was observing in my captives. It was complete speculation and had not one scrap of real observation of wild hatchlings built into it...... until now.

I have posed the question many times to people just like this, "Okay. So nobody knows what hatchlings do in the wild, right? How do we know the the gravid females don't migrate over dry land to lay their eggs near lakes or rivers. Sea turtles travel thousands of miles for this, how do we know that sulcatas don't do something similar?" I really never expected this to ACTUALLY be the case, I was just proposing it as a hypothetical for all the naysayers who think my very successful method for starting hatchlings is "un-natural". Like Ana's vet for example. To find out from a man who was born and raised in Africa with wild sulcatas, and is probably the world's foremost expert on WILD sulcatas, that my totally made up POSSIBILITY might actually be true was pretty shocking to me actually. Since no one really knows what the hatchlings do in the wild we are left with what does, and does not work, in captivity. My proposed, and admittedly far-fetched theory was reverse engineered from what was happening in front of my eyes in my captive environment.



dalano73 said:
Very cool, must have been a wonderful conversation.

It was. Truly. Wish you had been there.

Neal said:
I don't have enough information to really have any kind of debate here, but I am a bit skeptical that the answer to smooth shelled sulcatas in the wild is they stay in swampy areas.

Debate aside...this is interesting information.

Fair enough. Me too actually. I DO admit that it is only four hatchlings and MUCH more research is needed. But I agree it is very interesting, none the less.
 

DeanS

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I'm elated over the whole thing and plan to stand by silently while Tom and Tomas delve deeper into this theory (which, you all know, I fully support from the start)! I just hope I can remain silent...and not act all giddy my own self:p

But, as there are (at least) two subspecies of sulcata, I have to wonder about those that don't have access to a marsh or even a waterhole...There are parts of the Sahara where even during a torrential downpour, the sand would swallow the rain as fast as it hit the ground. These sulcatas would retain more airborn humidity...whereas those residing in the marsh have a more permanent (environmantal) humidity. Are they just taking cover in the bush, like we know leopards do? And that having been asked, do the true desert-dwellers make more use of burrows?

Can't wait to find the anwers!
 

dmmj

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I wonder if they have some sort of migration pattern? born there live there then move somewhere else. Did they happen to mention if this was the first time the potted them there?
 

FADE2BLACK_1973

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Wild sulcata's migrate to where they were born (near marshes) to lay their eggs and then move on back out to the dry savannah's. So they travel great distances. Well this is what I take it from what Tom was told.
 

Eweezyfosheezy

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Tom said:
Eweezyfosheezy said:
Thanks Tom now I am pissed I didnt get to make this year!!! lol

So we'll see you next year then, right?:D

Haha. Next year it will be in Minnesota, or somewhere really far away like that...

Lol you will see me there for sure if its in Arizona which I dont know why it wouldnt be because Arizonans are the coolest :D and with my luck it'll be in some other state lol.
 

Sky2Mina

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Interesting news.
But i dont get why its such a big secret? Hasnt any researcher ever stuck a chip or something to a female sulcata and tracked down where they lay eggs?
 

Laura

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it takes money to do that type of research... and a chip wouldnt do it.. it would be a collar or a stick on the shell type thing.. and that might not work well in burrows or when bred...
 
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