Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I got a 2 year old sulcata tortoise for my wife and we have a 250 gal.Tank.What would be the best bedding for her.Also on the heat lamp what type of bulbs do most of you use.Want to keep her in good health.And mabbie get her a mate soon.Any info is welcomed this is our first.Thanks,Bruce Hudson

Hi, that's a nice size enclosure for one sulcata at this age, mine
started with a 300 gallon and that lasted for 3 years, then he required
a 1000 gallon and after a year he's now outside in his own
building (see some pictures in the forum below where I posted
named - Basking in January) to see his cottage. My sulcata is
a male, over 50 pounds at 4 years old, he'll be 5 this summer.
There's currently no way you can determine that your sulcata is
a female, it's nice to call her that for now, it's very likely
to turn out to be male though. That's why trying to "get a mate"
would be a probable disaster as they will fight severely even
to death. (My tortoise is a large lap baby but will try to kill
anything he imagines is another torotise!) Besides having only
one of each sex (if it were that way) would be very stressful
for the female - it would be better to have 2 or more females
with just one male. Depending on how large your tortoise is now,
I'm assuming he's still small enough to pick up with one hand,
you might want to wait and see what it's truely like keeping such
a strong animal with the demands of overwintering them in warmth
that we tend to need in most of the US.
These animals are fine alone, and loners in the wild. I hope I've
given you some info to consider before purchasing another one.

As to the lighting, they need plenty of good UV lighting which
is best provided by a mercury balast bulb (bulb costs about
$50.00 generally, no pet store $8 is going to work - this is
essential for their shell development. There are several companies
that make these bulbs, in a 250 gallon tank you could easily use
a 250 watt bulb or 160 if you added additional heating lamps only.
Make sure to provide plenty of calcium in the form of cuttlebone
(made for birds) and a large variety of greens (endive, escarole,
collards, turnip greens, mustard greens, green peppers, squashes,
zuchinni etc...) and provide timothy hay for opportunity eating.

Theodore my Sulcata tortoise

sorry, fogot, I use aspen - Kaytee brand
I also like the 100% natural hemp bedding made by Life Mate.

Those are fine.

Niki, I have two hatchling Sulcata's housed together. I have not seen any aggression from either of them. They are next to my desk in my office and I watch them a lot. I just picked them up and looked at their tail and spurs. One of them has a very long tail and it goes past the spur and the other one has a very short tail that doesn't evey get close to the spur. Is it possible to identify gender when they weigh only 100gm? Would this be a reason why no aggression seems apparent? I have read many times that sexing is not possible until much larger but their tails are obviously quite different.

Hi, well, your tortoises are so tiny there's no way you're going
to see this behavior, nor determine their sex. It would be like
trying to say you don't see teenage sibling rivalries when you
just have infants. Of course not yet.

If I had two hatchlings, I would keep them seperately. There's
no benefit to keeping them together (other than to the keeper)
and many subtle negatives that are likely such as bullying
(don't think you'll see or even obviously recognize it), and
it's almost impossible to have an "ideal" basking area and "ideal"
sleeping area, food access etc... with two animals. One will
probably wind up getting the best of what that cage can offer and
eventually you may have a dominant one and a runt. My opinion only,
you are free to do as you please. Besides the problems I talked
about earlier are just a matter of when, not usually if.