Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a sulcata book I now they get huge.I need some caresheets and what do you feed them?Mine is indoors with heat and UVB.How do you give them calcium.Hes very small should I build him an outdoor cage now or when he gets larger.Do you know any good plans?

THANKS A MILLION

Sulcatas are perhaps the easiest of the larger tortoises to take care of. With good care and proper nutrition, they can be very enjoyable pets. For now, your best off in a ten/fifteen gallon tank. For substrate, sand, lizard litter work best. Relatively easy to clean, and fairly inexpensive. A reptisun 5.0 Uv light works best, and a heat light that gets the basking spot around 105F. With a ten gallon tank, you will probably need a 75 watt heat bulb. You want at least 12 hours a day of both heat and UV, and an ideal night temp is around 70. A few cage furnishings such as a cave, driftwood, is ok, but not necessary. On the nutritional side of things, it is always best to mix it up. I always like Romaine, Collard Greens, Dandelions(pesticide free), mustard greens and red leaf lettuce. Do not feed them iceberg, maybe the worse type of vegetation there is. A lot of companies sell pellets, which work good as long as you mix it up. Some feed their's monkey chow, which is high in protein, and too much can create pyramiding. This is a sign of malnutrition, when the shell gets points, or pyramids. Consult the breeder on this, but I went with two-three times a week with dusting. I would simply put calcium, or vitamins, on the lettuce, in small quantities. For water needs, simply have a bowl,( where they cant drown in) and change water daily. Be sure to use a plate of bowl for food, especially when you use sand, to prevent taken in sand particles. Get a feel for how much it eats. Tortoises are big eaters, and will basically never stop. Other than that, consult your breeder or pet shop where purchased, for specific needs that the tortoise was brougt up on. Thats really it, enjoy your tortoise, keep him/her hot, and well fed, and you will have a pet for a long time to come.

I got them at the arlington,tx reptile show I went back today and got another from the breeder.I read on some websites that you should not feed any vegetables made for human consumption.I have been feeding him[them] grass.Is their a good book I have the blue paperback one[sorry dont have the name in memory.How do you heat them dury the winter,when they are outside[of course when they are older]?I was thinking of two insulated dog houses with blue heat lamps or a rubbermaid shed heated by a outdoor heater.

Kim at turtlecafe has an excellent page with step-by-step instructions for building a heated, outdoor house in appropriate climates.
http://www.turtlecafe.com/habitat.pl
She also has a great selection of grass/wildflower seeds and huge cuttlebone!
(satisfied customer, no other connection)

Check out
http://www.sulcata-station.com/
and especially
http://www.sulcstatn.addr.com/housing.html

Aquaria/tanks are unsuitable for tortoises, even small ones!

hes in a big rubbermaid

Excellent!
Provide a temperature gradient and a *moist* hide.
Read, research, and observe!

Best of luck!

No mass produced and packaged product can match the nutritive value provided by grasses and/or hay.

Timothy hay can comprise the majority of a Sulcatta's diet. It's a source of food that the animal can graze on at its liesure (if used as a substrate). It is best to use a variety of grasses, however, such as Oat hay, small amounts of Alfalfa, and others (http://www.oxbowhay.com). These grasses naturally posses the correct amounts of nutrients, and are closer to what the tortoise would naturally eat in it's native environment than either prepared foods or supermarket produce. They promote proper digestions and physical development as well. If you check you will find that this is what most zoos use for their large tortoises.

You seem pretty certain of this. Can you tell me how you can be so sure? And what is the nutritional requirement of a 3 week old Sulcata that you are so certain that you are providing all it's nutritional needs with the feed you are providing?
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

Commercially-prepared "tortoise chow" (no matter who makes it) is a particularly bad idea for sulcata tortoises. G.sulcata needs high fiber plant material for proper nutrition. Their digestive tract has evolved to handle large amounts of cellulose. The cellulose is broken down into soluble fatty acids in the torti's complex fermenting digestive system. These are the source for the torti's nutrition. Where do processed foods fit in a system like this? They don't. I believe there are long-term health problems such as changes in the kidneys and digestive organs. I think there are malnutrition problems also. By the way, they can become constipated without their massive amounts of roughage keeping stool structure firm. Andy [Highfield, Director of the Tortoise Trust] has seen some necropsies of this sort of thing, ask him. This same diet of gobs of plant fiber keeps internal parasites and undesirable bacteria in check. Throw in some high energy processed foods - you will have worms, protozoa and bacteria thanking you. The torti will most likely accelerate his food intake to account for the loss of nutrition. Those foods are a gimmick; they play on today's fashion of being convenient.

Commercial foods of any kind are NOT good for reptiles of any species. Bonnie Key wrote a very enlighting, eye-opening article about commercial reptile foods (unfortunately no longer available online) for the Veterinary Information Network website. Despite what their advertising copy may claim, the companies manufacturing these foods DO NOT do any real research into whether their foods are good for reptiles! As Bonnie said in her article, pet-product companies are in business to make money for their shareholders, not to benefit pet owners and their critters. With the increasing popularity of reptile pets, these companies realized that they had a golden money-making opportunity in selling often useless (and sometimes dangerous) items to reptile owners. Thus pet stores have shelves full of pelleted and canned diets for a variety of reptile species that may not actually benefit from such foods. And as Brad stated above, reptile owners need to get past the "convenience factor" of such foods and realize that these products can actually ruin the health of their pets.

If you feel that strongly about it... don't use it.

I feel just as strongly about using it in the manor in which I'm using it and will continue to recommend it within guidelines until I see some negative results.

I guess you missed the post were I pointed out that the Mazuri is well researched and I know of another prepared diet that was thoroughly researched for Desert tortoises.

I really don't think that most of this stuff is 'thrown together' although I do know of some diets that are... but I don't use those.

I would suggest you research the availabile data and information on both sides of the fence before coming to a conclusion.
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

Sulcata torts evolved in the semi-arid regions of Africa just south of the Sahara Desert. As a result, their digestive tracts have evolved to handle low-nutrient, high-fiber foods like dry grasses and weeds. These tortoises are very good at extracting nutrients from what would appear to be not-very-nutritious foods. Therefore, if you try to maintain your sulcata tortoise on a diet of grocery store produce ONLY, your tortoise will develop significant health problems (including kidney and liver damage) that can drastically shorten its lifespan.

Sulcata:
http://www.sulcata-station.org/
http://home.earthlink.net/~rednine/sulcatacare.html
http://www.sonic.net/melissk/sulcata.html
http://www.tortoisetrust.org/care/csulcata.html
http://www.turtlehomes.org/usa/sulcatacaresheet.shtml