Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm hearing echos here. Where are the sulcata people?
Come out of your shells please.
How many do you have?
How long have you had them?
Did you rescue one or did you buy one on purpose?
How big is it or how big are they?
How do you house them?
Have you had any problems with keeping them that you hadn't counted on?

Ours is a rescue, we didn't intend to keep her but she was in bad shape when she got here. We realized that because we know of nobody in our area who would know how to keep her we decided that if we got rid of her she would've been doomed, so we kept her ourselves. We live on an acre, she has half of that to roam/graze as she pleases.
We've had her 3 years this coming July.
We have only one.
She's grown from 9.1 lbs to 48.7 in this amount of time.
We keep her outside, we live in a desert, it's warm almost year round but her heated home which we call the tortoise mansion keeps her warm enough in winter.
Our biggest problem had to do with the chain link fence that was 20 or more years old.. it was here when we moved here. We had to tear it down & build a new fence so that she wouldn't get loose.
She could see out of the chain link fence so she paced the fence line constantly and would push on the fence. We had her cactus plants fenced off with a flimsier wire ranch fencing to keep her from demolishing the plants. One day last summer she walked though that fencing at nearly 50lbs and had a cactus feast. We thought by the time she's 100lbs she'll be walking right through that chain link fence too, so we recently tore it down & had a cinder block fence built.
She loves it, we've had it for about 3 weeks now & so far she doesn't pace the fence line at all. She basks out in the open in areas she's never basked in before, I think this new fence makes her feel safe. Her home is made of cinder block too, so maybe her territory is like one big den for her?
How about the rest of you?

PHRatz

Here's a bit about me, the torts and some questions I hope people might be able to help me with.

1st, I'm a lurker to the forums, not commenting much.
I'm a college student attending a great books college.
I've got 5 young sulcata's who all live on campus during the school-year (the president was nice enough to leave backcampus untouched by pesticides/fertilizers etc for them to graze on) They are currently in a 72 sq ft indoor enclosure, soon to be moved outdoors.

My eldest two are 5 years. The larger is 9lb, the smaller 5lbs. Growth and health have been steady with no problems except some small pyramiding. I've got one roughly 2yrs old who was a rescue. He was kept in a 10g fishtank till last July with no uvb and had a broken bottom jaw when I got him. He's since healed and is gaining size and weight. My youngest two are each about 1 lb. They have just turned 1 yr old. They are doing fine. I feed a mixture of: timothy, orchard grass, alphalfa, mazuri, endive, escarole, yellow squash, dandelion, collard greens, ocassionally star fruit, and optinua when I can get it.

So, in about 2 weeks I will be building their 700sq ft outdoor encloure. I plan on a three cinderblock high wall (buried 8 in deep) aroudn the perimiter with wooden stakes through the centers for added stability. I was also planing to bend sheetmetal at right angles and bury it on the inside against the wall in case they dig...is this a good idea or overkill? For substrate I was planning on soil/sand/grass/cypress mulch, are these good? I was planning on putting in a small water area (not very deep [6in @ center]), my question was (would a sulcata actually walk in to the point where it might drown itself?). Grass... I'm looking into crab grass and burmuda grass... it needs to be cold tolerant bc its in NJ. What would be recommended and should I start with seeds? plugs? sod? I know their gonna be tough on it so it needs to be able to last. Next, there are three holy trees in the enclosure that I cannot get rid of, so.. Are the berries/leaves toxic? If so my plan is to cut back the tree's and then wrap them in screen from the widest section of brances to the trunk so that any berries/leaves would fall into the screen instead of the enclosure (I would clean these regularly... What do you think? Will sulcata's ingest stones? Im wondering because there are a number of small (quarter size) stones that are where the enclosure is to be made. I am planning to remove as many as possibly, but am not sure I can get 100% of them. Also, is a hide box necessary? or if there are lots of shady area's will they be ok without one? I am planning to bring them into the house at night, so nocturnal predators won't be a problem.

I think that's enough questions for the moment.
I appreciate any feedback

Rick

Hiya Rick,
I read your story on another list hee hee & I basically agree with much of what Steph said there but.. you know she said that they will pace the fence line even if it's cinderblock but that's not been our experience so far. Of course we only have the one tortoise, not five.
We've had chainlink fence for the nearly 3 years we've had the tortoise & she paced the fence fence line constantly, she pushed on the fence constantly. We tore it down put up cinderblock, ours is 500 feet of cinderblock, nearly as much as yours will be & our tortoise has stopped the pacing. Completely stopped it, she's grazing out in the open away from the fence line ALL the time now, she can't see out so she has no reason to be around the fence.
About the holly & it's berries that is a real problem. Almost all shrubs are poisonous so when our girl got here we yanked up every thing we had that was poisonous because they will nibble on anything. Can you locate the pen in a different area if you can't rid of those? The screens may work but I don't know if I'd trust that or not.
Burying the metal so they can't dig I don't think that's overkill... and as for hide boxes, we have a home for our big girl but in summer she likes her hide boxes which are just wooden dog houses with the floorscut out. We cut the floors out because she gets stubborn sometimes & won't come out when it's time to go to bed where the temperatures are better for her, so this way we can just lift them up & get her out whether she likes it or not. <g>
As for digging a lot, when wefirst got her we were told they dig but they are less likely to dig if you provide the hide boxes & that's worked for us. She really doesn't dig because she has lots of spots to hide in when she wants to.
This sounds like an awesome project for you, & I'm not so sure that 700 feet is too small for a group. I look around at our 500 feet of space for one & it's HUGE! I mean our house is included in the space and she has a lot of room to roam.

PHRatz