Life of Lajoska

[Pák]

Hi Everyone!

I got a baby sulcata on the 16-th of october, so he is almost 3 weeks ago with us. At the start he was 37 gramms and with 5 cm plastron lenght. I dont know when he exactly hatched, but i dont think he is older than 1-2 month?
I read trought all the main threads here on the forum, i want to tank for you all the usefull informations. It was insanely helpful ) But i need to say i find this forum after a few days i got him, so i did not know anything about dry starts, humidity and temperatures, but thankfully i managed to correct everything within a few days after i got him.

So i got him from a terraexpo, from a random seller who imports sulcatas from Germany, wich is bad i know but anyway here in hungary there is only one breeder and i dont know anything about him because of the lack of infos so it does not matter.
The seller said he soak the babys two times a week, wich means he had not the best start. That is bad also.
And the last bad thing is that i can now keep him only in open enclosure.

Finally the good things:

• 34-38 C basking area
• during the day the coldest corner is at least 25 C
• humidity is 50-60% in his enclosure
• He has a heated hide 28-30 C during the day, and 26-28 during the night, humidity is always above 75% there.
• during the night the outside temps are 24-25 C
• i soak him daily for at least 30 min
• feeding him twice a day with all the weed i can find in the garden

To make this happen i use a poor MVB bulb, but next time i will switch for a regular UVB source. He has a 65W heat bulb + a small heating pad ot the top of the hide (inside). And a 100 W CHE arriving soon, because now i control the low temps with the room temps. 😅

His personality:
First of all he is not shy at all, loves handfeeding, and never gets scared when we come closer to him. But the thing what he absolutely hate is to touch water, like wet surface or his water dish. Once or twice a day a spray his enclosure, and he always search for dry areas. The only thing when he accept water is the first 10 min of his daily soaks. 😅 But maybe this will change with time because yesterday, he scared the **** out of me, when he started running around and blowing bubbles with his nose and mouth. But his neck and front legs was wet so i think he just take a drink from his dish. But he never done this before .

About his weight: after the first week he lose 1 g, but after i fixed everything now at sunday he was 38g so i am hoping for the best.
I know that this period until he reaches the 100 gramm mark is a fifty-fifty if he will thrive or not, but i just want to provide the best conditions for it.

I want to use this thread like a diary of his journey with us, and i really hope it will be longer than i can imagine.

sorry for being so long 😅

 

[wellington]

Sounds like you are doing good.
But why can't you cover the enclosure?
It's really hard to raise a smooth tortoise without a closed chamber.
A simple build of a frame attached to your enclosure or even a stand alone frame, will let you drape plastic over and allow the hanging of lights/heat within the enclosure. It won't be as good as a built closed chamber but will help a lot compared to an open top.

 

[Pák]

This is his enclosure at the moment, no idea, how to make a cover for this. unless with a towel..

 

[Tom]

This is his enclosure at the moment, no idea, how to make a cover for this. unless with a towel..

Your baby will not thrive in an enclosure like that. You need to make a closed chamber with all the heating and lighting inside.

The temperature should never drop below 27C day or night, anywhere in the enclosure. That is the absolute minimum. Try to keep it a bit higher than that, and ambient temperature inside the whole enclosure should climb 30-33C each day, in addition to the basking area of 36-37C.

Ambient humidity needs to be at least 80%. Not 80%. AT LEAST 80%. 50-60% is too low for a hatching like this and it will cause problems.

Soak daily for at least 30-40 minutes and keep the water warm the entire time. Don't worry if the tortoise scrambles around trying to get out. This is good exercise.