TheChubbyMermaid
Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
- Messages
- 13
Help help help! I am a new tortoise mom. I want to give the best care to my new fast friends and want to make sure they're properly identified. These little guys were given to me by a coworkers father who lives in Palm Springs California. He say's they're "a desert tortoise," but I want to make sure I don't have a sulcata or something. Are there defining characteristics for a desert tortoise I can use? I can't tell the difference between Russian, sulcata or gopher at ALL, especially since they're so young. So really, these could be another species and I am feeding and caring for them all wrong.
They've been roughing it in a sweater box filled with smooth gravel until I have their habitat built which I am in the process of doing. I included a rendering... who says animal enrichment can't look awesome? Do you think that would be sufficient until they're large enough to have free range outside? The table is about 3x4 feet. They try and eat everything and I mean EVERYTHING. I want to get dirt/sand/top soil from the desert for their habitat, but I am afraid they will eat it. I read that the babies will eat sand and get impacted... if so that seems like a really weird thing for them to do since they are a desert species. There is sand everywhere in the desert.
Please excuse the photos of their paper towel habitat as it was their first day. They're so cute, omg their little tortoise bums! And tortoise stacking?! Are you kidding? They snooze like that. So cute in fact that I had to draw them. Hope you like the drawing!
They were being fed romaine lettuce and I quickly read up on desert tortoise care and added dandelion, hibiscus, mulberry leaves, bermuda grass and clover to their diet. They seem to like it! While I am scrambling around getting their habitat together I take them outside to sun and exercise each day for an hour or so. I still need to get a proper basking lamp and a calcium supplement.
Any critical hatchling care I should know about? They seem to sleep a lot. I have also determined they both think that the corner of their sweater box is the gateway to Narnia. They keep tying to walk through it... for hours.
They've been roughing it in a sweater box filled with smooth gravel until I have their habitat built which I am in the process of doing. I included a rendering... who says animal enrichment can't look awesome? Do you think that would be sufficient until they're large enough to have free range outside? The table is about 3x4 feet. They try and eat everything and I mean EVERYTHING. I want to get dirt/sand/top soil from the desert for their habitat, but I am afraid they will eat it. I read that the babies will eat sand and get impacted... if so that seems like a really weird thing for them to do since they are a desert species. There is sand everywhere in the desert.
Please excuse the photos of their paper towel habitat as it was their first day. They're so cute, omg their little tortoise bums! And tortoise stacking?! Are you kidding? They snooze like that. So cute in fact that I had to draw them. Hope you like the drawing!
They were being fed romaine lettuce and I quickly read up on desert tortoise care and added dandelion, hibiscus, mulberry leaves, bermuda grass and clover to their diet. They seem to like it! While I am scrambling around getting their habitat together I take them outside to sun and exercise each day for an hour or so. I still need to get a proper basking lamp and a calcium supplement.
Any critical hatchling care I should know about? They seem to sleep a lot. I have also determined they both think that the corner of their sweater box is the gateway to Narnia. They keep tying to walk through it... for hours.