Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My baby sulcata has been eating well (wet flower petals covered with cut up timothy hay) and pooping (alot) and drinking daily. I have been using calcium powder with D3 a couple of times a week. I am afraid to over do it. Is that possible? She also has a cuttle stone in her pen which she nibbles on occasionally. All this seemed great until i began to notice that her shell was a bit on the soft side. Is this normal for small sulcatas? If not what should i do? More supplements, more natural sun, different diet or a trip to the vet? Please reply, i really depend on this forum.

All the vitamins and calcium in the world won't help if your
tortoise does not have the UV lighting to convert in into
a strong shell. A soft shell is not normal and indicates
something in this process is missing. What type of lighting
do you have and how far from the tortoise is it positioned?
Nothing will replace natural sunlight but some the mercury
balast bulbs are as close as you can artificially get.

In the wild these animals eat over a hundred different types of
plants per day. I think a one-sided diet of timothy hay and a
few flowers isn't meeting the demands of this beast. Kinda like
a bread and water diet. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad mine is
eating timothy hay like a moose now, but I make sure he gets plenty of other things in his diet & Mazuri is fed once a week.
I think young sulcatas need the benefits of foods very high in
calcium like collards and some of the other greens.

My vet told me that all tortoises will have some what of a soft shell until they are a little over a year old.

Unless the shell is unusually soft, such as being squish, then I would not worry about it.
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Kelly Wood

1.3 Cherry Head Redfoots

1.2 Brazillian Redfoots

1.1.4 Leopard tortoises

1.1.2 Sandfire Bearded Dragons

0.2 Dogs

1.3 Parakeets

I would suggest putting calcium carbonate on it's food at every feeding. Also, make sure that he is warm, active and well hydrated. Finally... check for parasites. If you have all those bases covered I'd be really surprised if the shell is soft a couple of months from now.
The shell should be solid and well formed after the first year if you have all your ducks in a row.
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

Where can i get calcium carbonate? Is it just in powder form? I have Rep Ca, is that the same? I was told that i could damage her liver if i used it too often.

Cuttlebone is probably the easiest and best source you can find.
If you allow the tortoises natural metabolism to work as advertised you should not have any problems. That means to hold back on the D3 and use sunshine to metabolize the calcium.
Use a spoon or butter knife to scrape the cuttlebone onto the food at every feeding.
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care