Reptile & Amphibian Forums

New here, this is my mum's she loves tortoises. We named her Soup and she's very mischevious. We have a huge aquarium for her in the kitchen and a large fenced off area in our back yard and she digs all the time. I like helping to make her holes bigger even though I get yelled at for it
Unfortunately we have a rotweiler and a bulldog and Soup has had encounters with them before, she's ok but its still sad to see her battle scars :'[

I was wondering how big we should expect her to get how long it would take etc mum says she is pretty young right now... And it'd be pretty amazing if she laid eggs would it possible to ever breed her? Just once would be a beautiful experience but idk how practical it would be...

Anyways here's my cutie pants just pulled her out of a hole to take this one

the size will depend on diet and sex. the males get bigger quicker and females tend to grow slower but can get very large as well. i have a 11 year old male that is 65lbs and a 13 year old male that is 95lbs. 9 year old female that is 45lbs. and a 5 year old female that is 10lbs a 6 year old female @20 lbs. so it verys on many differant things what determines their weight. two things that give a sulcata a real dence weight are to give them PLEANTY of grass/hay i mean give em all they can handle! the other thing is sunlight. yes there is uvb bulbs but nothing is as good as good ol mother nature to give them a nice hard shell and to digest all that grass. so you should expect it to get very large. also you should not let your sulcata graze where your dogs are this is a very bad idea. not only will they get possibly chewed up or worse (saw some bad ones @ the vet last week) but sulcatas love dog poo! its like their favorite thing to eat and dogs have parisites! so it is extreamly bad for your sulcata to be grazing in thoes areas. breeding will come in time. get him\her to about 20lbs and go from there. hope this helps

Wow I hope she gets big : ] She's in a fenced off area specifically so the dogs don't get her, there's lots of veggies and grass in there and we always give her our left over veggies if we're cooking something. she's outside about 85% of the time, and here in texas she gets lots of sunlight : ] I was wondering if you could tell me if she has pyrimiding? Admittedly I'm not quite sure what it is/ looks like but I think its caused by a poor diet? I was also wondering how big their burrows can get and if they're even safe to have. Thank you for your help ^ ^

It does look like there is a slight bit of pyramiding but not bad. Watch the protein intake. If your using mazuri use less. i use mazuri but have seen it cause pyramiding when it is fed way to much. Keep a high fiber diet in mind when thinking sulcata. NO FRUITS! Fruits will cause a microbial breakout which can lead to various other problems once they have weekened the tort. and let bacteria set in someware. yes they love them some canalope but its in there best intrest to stay out of it. I feed mine lots of alphafa. I wet it in a container and put some yummies (romaine carrots ect..) on the bottom so they have to eat through the hay to get to it. some people use timmothy.

Their burrows can get quite big pretty fast. I saw a burrow that was so big and deep by a male 14-15in sulcata named Rosco that there was no way you were going to get him out! I mean he even dug under a big palm tree around roots and all! It sounds harmless and all but in the winter i like to have them trained to go back into their heat houses @ night. If its going to get cold and rain i dont want to be stuck underneith a palm tree tring to get one out of a hole! Its harder than it sounds as their legs will cling to the sides of the hole and sulcatas are extreamly strong! A few years ago my 95lb sulcata decided he wanted to dig a hole all of the sudden and before i knew it there was dirt flung everyware! So i would pull him out and fill it in and for 3 days we went round and round. to discourage digging i give them some sort of shelter where they feel closed in. simple as it sounds it for the most part seems to do the trick. some people use dog houses/camper tops whatever you decide that you like just keep in mind winter will be here soon enough. if you keep them inside start training them to use there heat house now. its in there instinct to use a burrow so they will take to it fairly quick. i hope i answered your question!

Yeah I've been in the chatroom a lot herptile helped too, soup is a rescue and my dad says the previous owners caused the pyrimiding, we have her on a good diet she gets lots of sunlight and has a lot of room to exercise. Sulfurboy1o3 had a pic of his sulcata next to a dog igloo, and we have one exactly like it that doesnt get used so I'm planning on letting her have it. she likes to cuddle up into corners and hide under things so I'm sure she'll like it. I also think that she is a tame digger [well presently, I know they will get deeper as she gets older] and plus you can't dig more than two feet or so before hitting pure rock lol this is austin tx its built on limestone : ]
thank you you definatly have helped answer my q's and more

Just remember to feed only grasses and hay. These guys live in the dessert. There is not much in the way of fruit and veggies there. Occasional flowers and occasional cactus with thorns removed are all you should give (along with the grasses, weeds and hay). Save the treats for trying to get them to move where you want them to go when they get bigger.