Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a few questions and I was hoping that someone on this board could help me...

First of all - I am trying to find out if Sulcata tortoises can be on cypress mulch outside. I have read a lot of past posts about mulch but they all seem to be related to inside enclosures. I have two yearlings and I have the perfect area to let them go outside during the day but I just put cypress mulch (the bags from Home Depot) in that area. I'd prefer to leave the mulch but if I need to remove it all then I will have to put something in it's place, what should I use. I read somewhere that I can use a mixture of play sand and peat moss (the stuff in a bag at Home Depot)... is that correct? I can't find where I read that now.

Next question - There are some plants in the area and I can't find anywhere if they are ok for my torts if they were to eat them. What's there are Pentas and Plumbagos. Does anyone know if these would be okay. i have found a lot of sites listing safe and unsafe plants but these are not listed anywhere. I went to a really great nursery and they guy there said that Pentas are not poisonous to people but plumbagos are. He couldn't tell me if that would be the same for tortoises or not. I was thinking of removing the plumbagos to be safe but I'd like to leave the pentas.

Thanks in advance,
Tracy

See if this helps.

http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/substrates.html

If they don't have anything but an "unnatural" substrate outside
also, especially a mulch, with nothing to graze and browse on,
they'll probably get bored and start tasting/eating it which
you don't want. Couldn't they be on grass and natural earth?
Sounds like they're in a flower bed on mulch. I also don't like
the idea of those uneven/sharp pointy edges on many pieces of
mulch poking into them possibly. As far as cypress mulch, unless
it's kept moist (not a good idea for sulcatas at all) then it gets
terribly dusty real quick.

np
substrates

I wanted to let you all know that I did remove all the mulch. I have gone to different sources to find out if cypress mulch was okay or not and it's a 50/50 split. Some say it's fine and others say it's not. I decided to removed it to be safe and because fire ants were starting to make the mulch their home.

Someone mentioned that it sounded like a planter. It was originally.... it's triangle shaped and the size is 10x10x13. We use to have a fish pond in that area with a lot of flowers and plants. I removed all the poisonous plants and I'm replacing them with Hibiscus and other safe grazing plants. I also have little planters of grasses, etc. that I grew from seeds. I am going to bury the planter so that the grasses are at ground level for my yearlings to graze on. I'm converting the planter to a tort. enclosure so that my little ones can be outside during the day and then inside at night. I don't want anyone to think that I just want to stick a couple torts. in a planter for looks. I wasn't sure if that's how anyone took it or not but just in case I wanted to clear things up.

Thanks for the advice I got.

Tracy