24/7 Outside Central Coast California?

Blackdog1714

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I have met persons from these same regions that were only a few months removed from there- it was a beautiful evening in Richmond 70 degrees with 40% humidity. They had on lonsleeve shirts and pants and were SHIVERING! I mean rub your arms because your so cold. I have not been there but I had first hand accounts of how Hot it gets!
 

Tom

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Your experiences are based solely on your own climate. That’s the problem. So when you say “ground temps stay x” all year long. That isn’t true. Soil density and makeup have a lot to do with that. Ground temperatures in the Sahel are no 80-85F year round.
My first hand experiences are based on my own climate. Yes, that is true. But the data I'm using is from the native range, as seen in Mark's post.

We DO know the ground temps in the Sahel region. Its published info. Its right around 80-85 all year long, with few exceptions that deviate slightly out of that temperature range.

It’s basic climate data available to anyone. You really are looking at all of the data like a diurnal species. When someone says the high today is X and the low is Y, you’re holding the X out as a constant in this argument. That’s incorrect. When you say “they don’t see temps in the 60s, that just is not true. It’s the end of winter right now and today’s low is 66°F in parts of Chad. Senegal is hot as anything in the summer but average day highs for winter are 78° and lows in the mid low 60s. There is an active tortoise preserve in Senegal...
I'm not holding the the X out. I'm holding the average temps out, and the ground temps out for the purpose of this argument. When I say they don't see temps in the 60s, my argument is that this diurnal species is down in its burrows during the dead of night on the rare occasion that temps drop that low, and ground temp in the region are 80-85. They do not experience temps in the 60s in the wild. They don't come out until the morning sun warms things up the next day, IF they come out at all. That 95% figure applies here. They literally spend 95% of their lives underground, according to Devaux and my friend Tomas Diagne who wrote "The Crying Tortoise" which is the only book I've found with any first hand info about wild sulcatas and their behavior. My own tortoises use their night boxes here for the same purposes during our cold North American nights. Many years ago, I let their night box temps dip into the 60s. They survived and seemed fine. When I started keeping them at temps that were more correct for the species and how they live in the wild, the difference was astounding. Their health, vigor, appetite, and growth was greatly improved.

The point of the argument is that you are discussing an area 5,000km long and 1,000km wife and cherry picking daily high temps and the highest average low somehow and holding it out as a fact of climate. I’m just saying, that it’s incorrect.
No. That is not what I'm doing. What I'm doing is looking on a map at the best and most current data about where sulcatas actually occur today, and picking a half dozen cities nearest to those areas and watching the weather there all year long for the last 11 years. It IS correct and the only thing better would be to strap a thermometer with satellite telemetry to the back of a few living wild sulcatas, which I would LOVE to do someday, somehow.


I don’t plan on killing dozens of tortoises. I don’t know why anyone would “experiment” but apparently they—you—have for decades? I don’t understand the point of that comment.
Whoa whoa whoa Wubzy... Who said anything about killing them? By some stroke of luck, none of my early sulcatas that were raised and kept all wrong ever died. They were definitely stunted and pyramided because of the incorrect advice that I and everyone else was following, but none died. The experiments I refer to are growth experiments with babies in various types of enclosures and conditions. I've been doing them annually for over a decade now. Much has been learned and shared, and there is much more to learn.


Do you guys really think Crepuscular tortoises, who evolved to be out when the predators are hunting, is out during the hottest part of the day in the Sahel? They come out at the cooler end of each day and spend their days in a cool slightly more humid burrow. That’s not even a debatable fact...
By definition, sulcatas are diurnal. Not crepuscular. Burmese stars are crepuscular. I have both and the difference is obvious when I come in at dusk to close them all in their night boxes.

And in Africa, the predators are active all day and all night. The diurnal predators you refer to don't like the daytime heat any more than the tortoises do. ALL of them hide form the scorching day time heat.

The term "cool" is subjection. I don't find 80-90 degrees to be "cool" but if you do, that is okay with me. I suppose one could argue that 85 degrees is "cool" if its 114F topside.

As for 30 lows in winter I did not say that. I said in the rainy season the temp swings 30 degrees lower, and it does. They are most active when food is abundant in that season. Again, available.
I read and understood what you wrote about the 30 degree temp swings. I did not say anything about temps in the 30s. My point is that in the tortoise burrows with their annual mean temps and the very stable ground temps, the tortoises themselves are NOT experience 30 degree temp swings regardless of what is happening above ground.


I appreciate experience, but your mileage varies. The Ojai sanctuary keeps them in a barn... they seem to be fine. Core temps in the 60s. The point being, climate takes adaptation. It’s 118° in Phoenix and you don’t see 90% of the wildlife outside of the dawn hours.
The Ojai Sulcata Project that you refer too is a friend of mine named Dave Friend. Dave was clinging to these old incorrect ways and made his website specifically to refute the new info that we had discovered and were sharing here. He has since recanted, but his failing health makes changing the website a low priority. I've personally been to his facility multiple times. I see how he keeps them, and I used to keep mine similarly. Dave, however, has never raised babies the way I recommend, and he's never housed adults the way I do. This being the case, him and others like him have no comprehension of the difference. How could they?

Not sure what your point about the Phoenix wildlife is directed to. I agree with your assessment, and that is exactly what happens in Africa too. Wild sulcatas are not walking around in temps in the 100s during the day, and they are also not walking around when temps are in the 60s or 70s at night. During either of those times, they are in their 80-85 degree burrows.


As for what’s read on the internet, every day people come here and read your advice on the internet.

You refuted someone else’s ground temp claims in the past by saying your 12’ below surface burrow was in the 70s. Why’d they have to get that deep if they love the heat so much? Was the burrow really in the 70s or did you probe it when you are most active and not take a mean temp over the year at three different times during the day?
I see your point about the internet. This is why I take the time to explain my POV and back it up with real world results and experience to people who don't have any real world results or experience. My hope is that through reading about the experiences of others, we won't all have to make the same mistakes over and over to all each the same general consensus about what is best for our tortoises.

My tortoises dug that deep due to instinct. It isn't temperature related. They have no instinct that tells them "I'm too cold, I need to find that warm spot". When night falls and they feel too cool, they just park under the nearest convention bush and wait for the heat of the next day. This is why they will literally kill themselves by sleeping outside on a cold temperate night instead of simply walking into their heated night box. They don't get it. They are diggers. They dug down because they could. In the wild, temperatures would be correct at any depth, so things like soil composition, conspecific competiton,or personal preference would dictate how deep they dig.

Because our ground temps here drop too much in fall, spring and winter, I only let my sulcatas burrow during the hot summers when daytime highs are near 100 every day. The rest of the year they sleep in their above ground heated night boxes. Elsewhere on the forum, I had a thread years ago with one of my Argentine tegus. These are a temperate species, and I let mine live outside year round with an underground shelter that had rain cover and and access hatch. In that burrow, I did watch the ground temps all year, every year. It was 80-81 all summer long. In fall there would be about a six week period where the ground temp in my tegu's burrow would drop from 80-50, gradually. It would stay 50 all winter long, and then another 6 week period in spring when the ground temp in the burrow would climb back up to 80. These temps were great for a temperate lizard species, but much too cold for a tropical tortoise species.

I hope these paragraphs shed some more light on the discussion and explain better why I make the assertions that I make.
 

Tom

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I have met persons from these same regions that were only a few months removed from there- it was a beautiful evening in Richmond 70 degrees with 40% humidity. They had on lonsleeve shirts and pants and were SHIVERING! I mean rub your arms because your so cold. I have not been there but I had first hand accounts of how Hot it gets!
I had the opposite experience with a student from Alaska in high school. We lived in a CA coastal area, and the climate would be considered "mild" by just about anyone from anywhere. In winter temps would be in the 50s some days, and we'd all be freezing our butts off in jackets and pants, and the new kid form Alasaka would walk around in shorts and a tank top be complaining about the heat. Seen this in dogs too.
 

GoGamora

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Just reviving this to report back 3 years later. I am the type of person that really likes to analyze and red team or steel man my own position to the extent possible and will always listen to reason. I have not kept my tortoise outside except to graze when it's sunny and I can get a good laser return of 80 degrees on a tortoise shell that I leave in my front yard.

I built a 4' x 2' long enclosure out of naturally disease / rot resistant wood and acrylic for the front. The top was was also wood and fixed except for a smaller 27 gal tank screen top that I use for the 100w Ceramic Heat Emitter and the 150w ReptiSun bulb (in the shallowest domes). I use aluminum foil around the lamp so there really is only 1/2" space at the top of the acrylic between the acrylic and the lid for air exchange. Temps have been constantly around 95-100 degrees f in the basking spot and about 90 everywhere else with humidity at about 75-80% using a sonic fogger that I bought on amazon and distilled water. I clean it regularly as well. Substrate is just reptibark. Water dish is a ceramic pot base / plate. Diet has been exclusively my eco lawn which is a mix of tall fescue, three different types of clover, yarrow, some cheat grass. Pyramiding has been controlled since picking the tort up from the reptile show / has not gotten any worse. When I picked this tort up it had minor (very minor) lumpiness. I'm not sure if its the humidity or the grass / grazing diet or what, but shell has been growing nicely and proportionally from when I got it. Pretty sure its a female. I think my "natural" diet has also led to slow growth compared to those who feed heavy on Mazurri / high protein.

I am moving from the central coast to Arizona so we will see how that goes.
Thanks for the advisements Tom!
 

Yvonne G

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Just reviving this to report back 3 years later. I am the type of person that really likes to analyze and red team or steel man my own position to the extent possible and will always listen to reason. I have not kept my tortoise outside except to graze when it's sunny and I can get a good laser return of 80 degrees on a tortoise shell that I leave in my front yard.

I built a 4' x 2' long enclosure out of naturally disease / rot resistant wood and acrylic for the front. The top was was also wood and fixed except for a smaller 27 gal tank screen top that I use for the 100w Ceramic Heat Emitter and the 150w ReptiSun bulb (in the shallowest domes). I use aluminum foil around the lamp so there really is only 1/2" space at the top of the acrylic between the acrylic and the lid for air exchange. Temps have been constantly around 95-100 degrees f in the basking spot and about 90 everywhere else with humidity at about 75-80% using a sonic fogger that I bought on amazon and distilled water. I clean it regularly as well. Substrate is just reptibark. Water dish is a ceramic pot base / plate. Diet has been exclusively my eco lawn which is a mix of tall fescue, three different types of clover, yarrow, some cheat grass. Pyramiding has been controlled since picking the tort up from the reptile show / has not gotten any worse. When I picked this tort up it had minor (very minor) lumpiness. I'm not sure if its the humidity or the grass / grazing diet or what, but shell has been growing nicely and proportionally from when I got it. Pretty sure its a female. I think my "natural" diet has also led to slow growth compared to those who feed heavy on Mazurri / high protein.

I am moving from the central coast to Arizona so we will see how that goes.
Thanks for the advisements Tom!
This is all well and good, but where's the pictures???
 
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