Advice on Sulcata
- Thread starter HauAreY0u
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Welcome to the forum 
We will need some background information to help you out. How are you keeping your sulcatas? What do you have for lights? How long are they on? What are the temperatures in your enclosure, warm end, cool end, under basking lamp and night time? What is their diet?
All these questions will help us better know whats going on and hopefully we'll be able to help you.
Danny
We will need some background information to help you out. How are you keeping your sulcatas? What do you have for lights? How long are they on? What are the temperatures in your enclosure, warm end, cool end, under basking lamp and night time? What is their diet?
All these questions will help us better know whats going on and hopefully we'll be able to help you.
Danny
egyptiandan is rite but you should also try to feed him/her its favorite type of food,,, with some calcium sprinkled of it .... if i was you i would try a straw berry or any colorful food it have eaten before
Hi,
First off your temperatures are to high. It should be 90 to 95F directly under the basking light, 84 to 86F for the warm end and 78 to 80F for the cool end during the day. Night time temperatures of 68 to 70F are fine.
You also need to vary the diet more and add calcium to every feeding. With the shell already getting soft on one hatchling and the other 2 soon to follow, you need to be soaking at least once a day. Also you need to be adding a liquid vitamin (I use Vitasol for birds by 8in1) to the soaking water every other day for at least a year.
Check out this site for more information about diet for your sulcatas
http://africantortoise.com/
Danny
First off your temperatures are to high. It should be 90 to 95F directly under the basking light, 84 to 86F for the warm end and 78 to 80F for the cool end during the day. Night time temperatures of 68 to 70F are fine.
You also need to vary the diet more and add calcium to every feeding. With the shell already getting soft on one hatchling and the other 2 soon to follow, you need to be soaking at least once a day. Also you need to be adding a liquid vitamin (I use Vitasol for birds by 8in1) to the soaking water every other day for at least a year.
Check out this site for more information about diet for your sulcatas
http://africantortoise.com/
Danny
Lots of people think that romaine lettuce is a good food for tortoises, so don't beat yourself up about this, however, what do people eat when they are dieting? Lettuce!! Romaine has a bit more nutrients than iceburg, but its still a water-food. Think about what your sulcata might find to eat in the desert. Its certainly NOT any kind of lettuce. What they are able to find are weeds and grasses and the occasional succulent plant. So in a captive situation your sulcata should be fed dark, leafy greens, such as endive, escarole, turnip greens, kale, raddiccio, spinach, etc. You can buy a nice variety of dark, leafy greens all packaged up in the grocery store produce section called "Spring mix". This is a mixture of the young leaves of various types of plants. I haven't met a sulcata yet that wouldn't eat Spring Mix.
I sold one of my Manouria hatchlings 10 year ago to a friend who also had a hatchling sulcata. The Manouria was kept outside in a protected pen and there were a few weeds in there, but the sulcata was kept on the kitchen counter in a 10 gallon aquarium. The sulcata looked fine one day and the next day she had "collapsed", that is, her carapace simply fell and she was flat. She died the next day. A couple years later when she was going through a divorce, my friend gave me back the Manouria, which is now very deformed. Almost flat and quite bumpy. I have since found out that all my friend fed her tortoises was romaine lettuce. Thank goodness for the few weeds in his pen, or the Manouria would be dead too. Here's his picture;
And here's one that I kept from that same clutch:
Yvonne
Yvonne
I sold one of my Manouria hatchlings 10 year ago to a friend who also had a hatchling sulcata. The Manouria was kept outside in a protected pen and there were a few weeds in there, but the sulcata was kept on the kitchen counter in a 10 gallon aquarium. The sulcata looked fine one day and the next day she had "collapsed", that is, her carapace simply fell and she was flat. She died the next day. A couple years later when she was going through a divorce, my friend gave me back the Manouria, which is now very deformed. Almost flat and quite bumpy. I have since found out that all my friend fed her tortoises was romaine lettuce. Thank goodness for the few weeds in his pen, or the Manouria would be dead too. Here's his picture;
And here's one that I kept from that same clutch:
Yvonne
Yvonne
wow, when i got my first sulcata thats all he told me to do was to feed him romaine lettuce. i try to feed mine grasses like orchard grass, but they dont seem to enjoy that as much as the endive and escarole. ive read on sulcata station that there diet needs to be mostly grasses and such, but is dark leafy greens a bad diet for them all the time?
They will eat more grasses and weeds as they get older. For now, endive, escarole, etc is just fine. But romaine is not. You can buy cut up hay, packaged, and sprinkle a bit of it over the greens. If you start out with just a "pinch" of hay, and add a bit more over time, they become accustomed to the taste and smell and will eat it more readily.
Yvonne
Yvonne
yeah, thats what i figured they seem to love the endive and escarole when i feed them they like run to it. how many times do you feed your sulcatas ? i feed mine every other day or so
I only have one Sulcata, Dudley (100lbs) and I don't feed him. He has to forage for himself...even during the winter when the grass is dead. There are some winter weeds and grasses, but I've seen him eating the dead grass too. I occasionally toss him a branch from the Mulberry tree. I figure there are lean times in the wild and they can't find food all year round too.
I only feed very young tortoises once a day, about what they can eat in an hour.
Yvonne
I only feed very young tortoises once a day, about what they can eat in an hour.
Yvonne
M
Maggie Cummings
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emysemys said:
I have 2 Sulcata, Bob is 70 pounds and I feed him every other day. Tony is 3 yrs and 13 pounds and I have just stopped feeding him twice a day. I figure a baby tortoise is still a baby with a small stomach and so needs to be fed twice daily. Now that Tony is older and bigger he gets once a day as much as he can eat in about 15 minutes. Most of their food is locally grown grass hay and wild dandelions. The grocery store saves all the crappy lettuce and lettuce products for me. I keep that in the 'fridge and add that to the hay every other day. I also feed grape and mulberry leafs and blooms. Most of what I feed them I have collected by walking around my neighborhood. I live right on the edge of town so there aren't many houses out here and I collect weeds and other stuff that looks to be edible. I don't know the names of most of the stuff I collect but I figure if it's not edible to them they won't eat it. I don't have to worry about pesticides or poison due to the lack of houses and manicured yards.
Sorry Yvonne...I meant this post to be directed to jobeanator but I don't post here often enough to know how to work my way around the site. I certainly know you are experienced and don't need me telling you how to feed Dudley.
Here's a link to a good site that will answer most questions about Sulcata their feeding and housing requirements.
http://africantortoise.com/
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