Kelly, Tom, Dean and Neal's Sulcata Husbandry Method Experiments

[Tom]

I've read SOOOOOO many articles on how to keep sulcatas.And so far tom's theory on the hole humidity makes sense I keep mine nice and humid if its ok I like to share some process pics on mine considering he almost died from being kept TO DRY .....

I'd love to see a new thread on this Carlos. Always looking for new info.

 

[Carlos83]

I've read SOOOOOO many articles on how to keep sulcatas.And so far tom's theory on the hole humidity makes sense I keep mine nice and humid if its ok I like to share some process pics on mine considering he almost died from being kept TO DRY .....

I'd love to see a new thread on this Carlos. Always looking for new info.

ok let me gather some pictures up . .

 

[Tom]

Update:
Here are some pics and weights from today. I am liking the results so far.
From smallest to largest, and remember there are two groups of three. Each group is from a different clutch. The last three pics are of the first hatched clutch, so they are a little older, and not surprisingly, bigger.

Weighing in at 154 grams is #6:

Weighing in at 159 grams is #5:

Weighing in at 170 is #4:

Now from the older group, #3 weighed in at 208 grams:

At 228, #2:

And finally, #1 weighed in at 265:

I tried to do close ups and really show the plastron profile and scute margins. The closed chamber system seems to agree with them. Comments and questions welcome.

 

[Carlos83]

Wow just beautiful great job bro

 

[Neal]

Tom - I find it interesting that the coloration of their carapace is almost exactly identical to the ones you have raised before from your own adults. Granted, they're all sulcatas and aren't going to vary all too much like with leopards...yet there is some variation in how dark or light their brown shells are between others I have seen from different genetic lines.

I don't think I could tell these ones apart from the other ones you raised.

As has been mildly discussed before, it is assumed by some that (speaking about leopards specifically) the environment that it is raised in greatly influences shell color and pattern. I wonder if something like that is at play here with yours or if I'm just tired and making things up after a rough day at work...

 

[l0velesly]

Amazing.. love their vivid coloring!!

 

[LuckysGirl007]

Tom - I find it interesting that the coloration of their carapace is almost exactly identical to the ones you have raised before from your own adults. Granted, they're all sulcatas and aren't going to vary all too much like with leopards...yet there is some variation in how dark or light their brown shells are between others I have seen from different genetic lines.

I don't think I could tell these ones apart from the other ones you raised.

As has been mildly discussed before, it is assumed by some that (speaking about leopards specifically) the environment that it is raised in greatly influences shell color and pattern. I wonder if something like that is at play here with yours or if I'm just tired and making things up after a rough day at work...

Hmm...that's an interesting thought!

Tom, they are beautiful!!

 

[Eweezyfosheezy]

Tom doesnt it just seem weird to you to see smooth baby tortoises nowadays? It just doesnt even seem natural to me, because I have seen so many pyramided tortoises in my life. Hopefully one of these days smooth torts will be the norm.

Although I am a backer of the hot, humid, and hydrated method I'm actually pleased to say I have a group of perfectly smooth sulcata babies that are raised in 20% or below humidity at all times besides their 30 minute soaking everyday in the sun. They have been kept outside everyday 24/7, once their yolk sacks completely healed.

 

[Tom]

Tom - I find it interesting that the coloration of their carapace is almost exactly identical to the ones you have raised before from your own adults. Granted, they're all sulcatas and aren't going to vary all too much like with leopards...yet there is some variation in how dark or light their brown shells are between others I have seen from different genetic lines.

I don't think I could tell these ones apart from the other ones you raised.

As has been mildly discussed before, it is assumed by some that (speaking about leopards specifically) the environment that it is raised in greatly influences shell color and pattern. I wonder if something like that is at play here with yours or if I'm just tired and making things up after a rough day at work...

These are also out of my same adults as the EOP ones. The three older ones are the same mother and father as Tulee, Tuck and Trey. The three younger ones are the same father, but different mother.

I do think environment has an influence on their coloration, but I cannot conclusively say exactly what causes what.

 

[Neal]

Oh...well that makes sense. I thought these were your Sudanese.

---

Just looked at your Sudan thread and they do look exactly like these ones.

I might be odd, but I think it's interesting.

 

[Tom]

Tom doesnt it just seem weird to you to see smooth baby tortoises nowadays? It just doesnt even seem natural to me, because I have seen so many pyramided tortoises in my life. Hopefully one of these days smooth torts will be the norm.

Although I am a backer of the hot, humid, and hydrated method I'm actually pleased to say I have a group of perfectly smooth sulcata babies that are raised in 20% or below humidity at all times besides their 30 minute soaking everyday in the sun. They have been kept outside everyday 24/7, once their yolk sacks completely healed.

I'm doing something similar with my wild bunch. They stay outside all day every day, weather permitting, but the they come in and get soaked and sleep in their humid enclosure over night. Mine are also growing smooth, but not as smooth as these, and not nearly as fast. They are a little on the small side for their age, but they eat everything in sight. They also look quite a bit different than these. I'll update their thread soon.

After nearly three years on this forum, I must say that I'm getting used to seeing smooth tortoises. Bit this just makes it all the more soul crushing to go to pet shops or reptile shows and see the "norm" that still exists outside of this forum.

 

[sibi]

RE: Kelly, Tom and Dean's Sulcata Husbandry Method Experiments

You made me a believer, Tom!

In addition to what Dean just said:
The man who made that website is named Dave. I now consider him a friend and he and I have talked tortoises quite a lot over the last few years. In a recent conversation we talked about the stuff on his website and why I disagree with some of it. He's got an open mind and even he is willing to listen and learn. He has had some conversations with some people lately that is making him rethink some of his ideas and explore new ones. None of this is set in stone and we are ALL learning as we go.

To answer your specific question about pooping to soon: That myth as well as a few others are simply hogwash.
They don't poop too soon and not digest their food.
It doesn't make them over hydrated or mess up their "water balance".
It doesn't cause any sort of ailment or problems.

If it did do any of these things, how have I raised over 200 leopard and sulcata hatchlings this way, with unprecedented success? My hatchlings all grow faster and smoother than dry dehydrated tortoises that are on the same routine otherwise, with the same amount of the same kind of food. They grow so well, because they are HEALTHY, inside and out. If they weren't digesting their food from the daily soakings, wouldn't they be undersized and growing very slowly due to a lack of nutrition? It's just the opposite.

Here's the thing: for decades people have based care for these guys based on speculation of the above ground temps and conditions in the regions where they are from for PART of the year. The dry season lasts for 8 or 9 months. During this time, they are underground, not out in the open in the hot dry air. My big question is: Why has the other 3 or 4 months of the year been completely ignored. You know, the "wet" season. THIS is when babies hatch and begin their new lives. It rains all the time. There are puddles and bodies of water every where. Marshes. It's very humid and hot, and there is green tortoise food everywhere the eye can see. THESE are the conditions baby sulcatas hatch into. NOT the 8 month dry season. People, including my friend Dave have asked, "Who soaks them every day in the wild?" He called it "unnatural" to soak them every day. My answer is, "Their Mother. Mother Nature." They live in MARSHES. There is water everywhere!!! I'm not picking on Dave. He's a great guy and I've had that same exchange with many keepers.

Anyhow, hope this sheds some light on things, and illustrates why I cringe when a new tortoise owner says, "I've been researching their care for months...". WHERE did you do your research, and what website have you been reading? It's a little scary out there, and even if I could get everyone to read what we all have here on TFO, some percentage are just not going to believe it and do the wrong things anyway. That's why I love it when people post pics of their gorgeous perfect tortoises, so everyone can see for themselves first hand what the results of hydration can be.

 

[lovelyrosepetal]

Hey Tom, I really like this thread, it is very informative and makes me really think about how to raise a sulcata tortoise. I have adopted your closed chamber, to the best of my ability and I am very pleased with the results. I find it very interesting about your wild bunch and wondered if you were able to make any guesses about which one might have laid this bunch? You say they are a lot lighter, I wonder if that is because of the substrate being natural dirt, grasses and what not or if it is because of all the natural sunlight without any of the hot lights above them. Just a thought and wondered what your opinion is? Great job and I love how everything is looking.

 

[Neal]

Update on my leo's.

I'm surprised. I expected these two to grow a lot faster than my other tortoises that only had the humid hide, but these are growing at almost the same rate. The only difference I have noted so far is the different behavior. As mentioned before, these two are significantly more active during the day, and will eat everything in sight. The majority of my other tortoises have been very timid and picky eaters, and will only be active in the morning and evenings.

While they are not growing faster, they do have a more solid feel to them. Their shells firmed up a lot faster than my previous hatchlings as well. Overall, I am much more pleased raising them this way.

 

[AZtortMom]

Beautiful babies!

---

I do have add, since I started doing the wet method, my babies have grown quite a bit and smoothed out a lot!

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

I want to understand why you are doing these experiments.

The big picture is a no pyramid tortoise?

It seems there are other underlying results sought for better understanding of the nature of hatchlings too.

It's not just smooth growth, but rapid smooth growth, as demonstrated by size and weight gain, over time with no pyramiding? Is this an attempt to meet the 4" rule?

I ask as I have seen, backyard sulcata that had no pyramiding to speak of, not bowling ball smooth, but OK, and they grew seasonally for the two years left to their own pattern of eat, drink, sleep and rest, in a smallish backyard in Fresno. After two years they were still very small, but healthy animals. The owner sorta just let nature takes its course, by virtue of not keeping track of hatchlings he was selling. The two year estimate is based on the years after he sold the adults.

As I read this thread, I see what would appear to be an interest in a captive climate that would keep the hatchlings in that ideal range of parameters for continual growth for maybe the first few years, not the annual stops an starts growth I would imagine happens in the wild?

I understand that within the areas that any species live in the wild, some populations might have a much longer growth period per year (based on some in-situ studies this is true for sulcata and leopards) than others. I would further speculate that these animals if kept this way for several years (15 to 20) they would become giant giants.

Is at least part of the experiment dedicated to maintaining that "sweet" zone of quality growth for an extended period, to a certain age or size?

Will

 

[tortadise]

I started this rhread with tom with the intent on different methods to obtain a single same result. to get enthusiests and tortoise owners a good option of many to grow their sulcata without going down the pyramided route and unhealthy tortoise routine. It seems my methods play more a role than you stated about stopping and starting. But mine do end up being giants though.

 

[Neal]

I want to understand why you are doing these experiments.

The big picture is a no pyramid tortoise?

It seems there are other underlying results sought for better understanding of the nature of hatchlings too.

It's not just smooth growth, but rapid smooth growth, as demonstrated by size and weight gain, over time with no pyramiding? Is this an attempt to meet the 4" rule?

Will, you have it right. The big picture is a no pyramided tortoises. My involvement here is to develop a husbandry method that produces smooth tortoises consistently, whereas my previous method has failed to do so.

I brought up the growth rates in my post as a side note...I suppose you could say that this is an underlying result being sought after. At least for my part. Though, I am not targeting any portion of my "experiment" towards encouraging rapid growth rates. I only bring up growth rates for comparability. From what we have seen on the forum, the hot and humid methods seem to yield faster growing tortoises. Historically, my methods have always yielded slow growth rates (as compared to other captive bred specimens). These slow growing tortoises do end up being full sized adults. In fact, one of my slowest growers is now my largest adult.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

I see better. My wonderment, if you will tolerate that. Is based on some of the daily elaborate procedures, best narrated by DeanS. Say we call the result of a few months to half a year of these intensive care regimes 'headstarting'. I would suggest that very few people will follow that protocol if they got a non-headstarted young tortoises at a Repticon. The pet shop would be where the 4 inch law comes in, hence maybe 'these sulcata headstarter with the "DeanS" protocol' on the cage at PetSmart. Otherwise how does this translate to most people buying a sulcata?

It seems a high humidity 'cage' and a commercial diet is a more palatable route for the hundreds of potential people in the future of the sulcata as a a pet.

Look at aquatic turtles. I am pretty darn sure that very very few people collect, propagate, or otherwise feed a diet to their aquatics based on the very well know natural histories of north American emydids, they feed a "chow" of some sort. Maybe use a filter, or do water changes, or some combo.

This gets me back to asking what is the purpose of the experiment? The "Austrian" study measured growth by a 'hump' index against two variables, humidity and protein. Hump being an indicator of pyramiding.

So as the purpose is to " get enthusiasts and tortoise owners a good option of many to grow their sulcata without going down the pyramided route and unhealthy tortoise routine" I would think easy do-ability might play a role.

Aside from the hands-off care, of letting a tortoise exists in a backyard, like Brits had been so famous for with a 'garden' tortoise, do you all think a further development of this purpose might be a commercial diet, and a few standard enclosure types for sub-adults, that before it's let loose into your yard period of ownership?

Will

 

[Tom]

Good questions usual Will.

Kelly, Dean, Neal and I are all friends. We each have some years of tortoise keeping under our belts and share a mutual respect. Rather than argue about the merits of one method or another, we all decided to just do it our own way and publicly demonstrate the results for every one to see. Seemed sort of fun and novel to have it all on one thread so people could compare and contrast the methods and results and decide what they feel would be the best way to go for their individual situation.

I find your observation of the potential complexity of these care regimes spot on. I realized how "complex" my methods were when I had to leave town and explain all the details to my tortoise babysitter. Another friend is working on "mass" producing a good size starter enclosure that is pre-wired and easy to set up. It will be a closed chamber. Humidity levels will be easy to maintain, ambient temp will be controlled by a thermostat and basking bulb controlled by a timer. Then all a person has to do is soak daily for the first few months and keep the water bowl clean. A bit oversimplified I know, but that about as simple as I can get it, and still get the results that I want to see.

On another note... About the fast growth, outdoor housing, and backyard style of raising tortoises: it has never been my intention to grow them fast. If you had read all 542 pages of my EOP thread, you would know this.(Ha! Kidding.) The faster than normal growth that I have experienced with the new warm, humid and hydrated methods, is an unexpected side effect, and I find it to be an indicator of good health. I don't feed them any more or any differently than I ever have. It seems to me that the health drived from being well hydrated and kept in the correct conditions allows them to thrive vs. merely survive as mine used to do under my old keeping standards. I too have seen the small sulcatas raised out loose in a backyard. Mine appear to be much more vigorous and healthy to me in comparison to the ones I have seen. Further, some people find my new methods to be "un-natural". Given what I have been told, and what I have studied on my own, the conditions that I am providing are as close as I can imagine to what a hatchling sulcata would experience in the wild since they hatch and spend their first few months in the rainy season. Hot, humid, food everywhere, lots of cover, rain is frequent, conditions are marshy and puddles for drinking and soaking abound. THIS, in my estimation, is what a baby sulcata needs. The dry, barren conditions with the dry foods and dry substrate that most people (not on this forum) are still keeping them in, is what is "un-natural". The cold temps that are experienced in most of North America are not natural for sulcatas. As Tomas phrases it, they have two seasons over there: Hot and Hotter. They go underground to escape the heat. Of course underground it's warm and humid... I don't find anything "natural" about raising a baby sulcata in a Southern CA backyard. The temps and humidity are all wrong and it does not surprise me that they grow very slowly. I don't find that natural or healthy. By contrast, I find the conditions that I create inside my closed chambers to be very natural and as close as I can get to what they really experience over there in the wild. My positive results with growth, health and smoothness are an affirmation that I am right about this. The stunted, pyramided, lethargic ones that I have seen raised in backyards here convince me that what "seems" "natural" to so many people, isn't.