I have been lurking in the shadows for months and love the dedication of the veterans who are always willing to share advice so we can raise the healthiest torts possible.
I am in the Houston, Texas area and my husband found a ~4 yr old male Sulcata walking down our street a few months ago. We live in an acreage community with a lot of woody areas and have no idea which direction he came from. We sought out possible owners for a while but then fell in love, now Brutus is a member of our family.
I fell deeply into the facination of this animal and decided that I wanted to raise a baby the @Tom method = pyramid free. So now we have added "Baby Girl" to the family (2 months old).
We have 10 acres and have some great plans for our tortoise sanctuary. Brutus enjoys a large outdoor pin and a nice indoor boudoir in the garage. He is quite the character; very inquisitive, loves to boogie when his shell is scratched / water sprayed on it, eats everything in sight (lots of grass and weeds - not to mention the 65 potted plants I have just for their clean dining pleasure: hibiscus, testudo mix, wheatgrass, timothy hay, all the good stuff as advised by the veterans.
Baby Girl's mansion is a custom built full enclosure maintaining an ambient of a balmy 80deg/80% humidity, humid hide, CHE, UV and florescent lights. She enjoys a nice warm ~20-30 min soak and colon cleanse daily. Even though I change out the water to ensure it stays warm and soak her in her enclosure, after a few mins she still tries to climb the walls (which are dark she cannot see through).
She is a nut job and will climb and thing she can in her mansion. She's only flipped twice and she was able to right herself one of those times (I suppose she could have flipped / righted more often when we were not looking). I try to correct whatever I can in the enclosure to help with the climbing. But seriously, I just watched her stop eating, walk over and climb over the top of her hide and nose dive on the other side then go back to continue eating.
Here are pics of my sweet angel babies. Once we finish building our house I hope to someday adopt other adults that need a good home.
Thanks to all for this wonderful place!!!
I am in the Houston, Texas area and my husband found a ~4 yr old male Sulcata walking down our street a few months ago. We live in an acreage community with a lot of woody areas and have no idea which direction he came from. We sought out possible owners for a while but then fell in love, now Brutus is a member of our family.
I fell deeply into the facination of this animal and decided that I wanted to raise a baby the @Tom method = pyramid free. So now we have added "Baby Girl" to the family (2 months old).
We have 10 acres and have some great plans for our tortoise sanctuary. Brutus enjoys a large outdoor pin and a nice indoor boudoir in the garage. He is quite the character; very inquisitive, loves to boogie when his shell is scratched / water sprayed on it, eats everything in sight (lots of grass and weeds - not to mention the 65 potted plants I have just for their clean dining pleasure: hibiscus, testudo mix, wheatgrass, timothy hay, all the good stuff as advised by the veterans.
Baby Girl's mansion is a custom built full enclosure maintaining an ambient of a balmy 80deg/80% humidity, humid hide, CHE, UV and florescent lights. She enjoys a nice warm ~20-30 min soak and colon cleanse daily. Even though I change out the water to ensure it stays warm and soak her in her enclosure, after a few mins she still tries to climb the walls (which are dark she cannot see through).
She is a nut job and will climb and thing she can in her mansion. She's only flipped twice and she was able to right herself one of those times (I suppose she could have flipped / righted more often when we were not looking). I try to correct whatever I can in the enclosure to help with the climbing. But seriously, I just watched her stop eating, walk over and climb over the top of her hide and nose dive on the other side then go back to continue eating.
Here are pics of my sweet angel babies. Once we finish building our house I hope to someday adopt other adults that need a good home.
Thanks to all for this wonderful place!!!
