Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

I recently found two sulcata (I think from the pictures I have found on the web). Someone left them at the dump, so I brought them home to take care of. I raise box turtles, so am familiar with torts and have been educating myself on these guys. They are now eating well and appear to be healthy. I will take them to my vet as soon as I can get some time in my schedule.

They are not too old, but I can't seem to find out how to age them. They are about the size of a baseball cut in half. If measured from underneath, they are about 4.5 inches or so. Can someone tell me how old they might be? Also, is there a way to tell the sex at this age?

I live in central TX and for now, they are living inside under good uvb lights and so I can control the heat. I am going to move them into a bigger container than what they are in now, but was wondering about substrate. I have a place where I can house them where I am not worried about dust, so I was wondering if a soil/sand mix would work best. Any thoughts on substrate would be appreciated. If that is a good substrate, what is the ratio?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Do you have pics you can post?
A sand and organic soil mixture does work--I personally use hay. I use hay for 2 reasons....they can burrow easily into it, also nibble on it, and it's easy and inexpensive to clean and maintain.

I can't believe someone would leave them at the dump!! Arrrgghhh..what's wrong with people?

You can't really sex the Sulcata breed until they are about 12-14 inches in length. Even then it's sometimes hard to guesstimate.

And it's also hard to age them. Sulcatas can grow rapidly depending on what foods and how often they are fed. My 4 year old is about 12 inces in length and weighs 8 pounds, my 2 year old weighs not even 2 pounds yet. I've known some 4 year olds to be much bigger then mine but SLOW steady growth is what you want with these guys.

Hay and heat lamps concern me. How do you protect your hay from the heat? Also, I will try and post some pics when I get back home.

You just want to be sure the heat lamp is hung or installed above the enclosure--by like 18 inches. Any closer and you may risk burning the torts shell.

I prefer to use the hanging heat lamps verses the clamp on ones..I was always too nervous that the clamp lamps would or could fall.