Am I generally raising my Sulcata correctly?

C_P808

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Hello everyone.

This is my first time ever posting here, so let me post details about my Sulcata; Chewie. I want to be sure I'm taking care of Chewie in the best possible manner for where I live. Please feel free to criticize anything I post below and share your own advice. Just don't be too harsh on me, I am still learning. Haha.

First off, my fiance and I bought Chewie when he or she (we THINK he's a boy) was maybe a year old; was about the size of the palm of your hand. We mistakenly housed Chewie in a large aquarium; about 5ft. by 2ft., for about three months. But, we kept the aquarium outside in the backyard. We live in Hawaii so temperature was never truly a problem. But, on those nights or days it would rain (it can rain a lot here at times), I set up a UVB heat lamp on top of the aquarium, so Chewie could bask under the light, or move to the other side of the aquarium for shade on the days it was just to wet to keep the aquarium outside. I eventually noticed that Chewie started getting teary eyes. After research I discovered that his eye problem could be caused by living in the aquarium and the humidity here. Humidity is real bad here as you may already know. High 90% tile usually. So we ditched the aquarium and allowed Chewie to freely live in the back yard. We don't have a HUGE backyard, nothing on an acre scale. Maybe 500 sq. ft. give or take. He has plenty of room to roam around and graze on the assorted grass and weeds here. Best of all, the sun is almost out all day long so I know Chewie gets more than enough sun exposure daily. There are plenty of bushes and shaded spots he can go to chill if the sun gets too intense, which it really does this time of year. After moving him outdoors, his eye problem cleared up and he generally seems very happy.

Diet wise, my Fiance works at a grocery store and has a card given by the state that allows us to take home an unlimited amount of scrap vegetables and fruit home. Boxes and boxes worth if we so chose. So when we first brought home Chewie and he lived in the aquarium, he mainly lived on a diet of green/red leaf lettuce, kale, broccoli, romaine and iceberg lettuce. With the occasion fruit like bananas and apples. But very rarely. Maybe once a month. We also bought him a calcium citrate supplement. Every other day, or every few days, I would break open a capsule and sprinkle it on whatever he was eating. He always had quite the appetite. He's always hungry now! Now that he lives outside, I mainly let him just eat what grows in the yard. I don't feed him the store bought vegetables as often, maybe once a week and I sprinkle the calcium on it. My coworker also has a Sulcata and bought a giant bag of tortoise pellets. A 50lb bag that she split with me. Colorful things you mix with water so they get soft. Chewie loves them! But I only feed those to him maybe once a week as well.

I used to soak Chewie in warm water every other day so he would poop or drink the water if he so chose to. Now, I only do it once a week. He used to not poop if he wasn't soaking. Now he poops everywhere, so I feel like it was okay to cut back on that. I always have a water dish out just in case he wants to drink from it though.

We have now had Chewie for over a year. He is about the size from the end of my fingers to a bit past my wrist. He seems very content. He has dug a tunnel under the hill in our backyard that he retreats to every night. I am not sure if I should cover up this burrow, it is not super deep, I can see the end with a flashlight, but it is too deep for my arm to reach the end of the hole. He seems to love that hole so much, I would feel bad for covering it up. But if you guys think it's dangerous, I will do it right away. Every morning he crawls out, walks around the yard in the sun for a few hours as he grazes then returns to his hole for a nap or three, comes out, eats more and repeats. Every week before I feed him the store bought veggies and calcium, I soak him, and wash him with a toothbrush to get all the dirt off him. After his bath, he is always very hungry and will usually finish of the entire plate of organic romaine lettuce. I no longer feed him fruit like I did even though he loves it so much. Every couple months, I give him a little bit of strawberries, blueberries or pumpkin as a rare treat. I probably should stop that though...

Anyway, that is about it! I will try post pictures of him later. What do you all think? I would really appreciate all the advice you can give me.
 

wellington

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Aloha and E komo mai:) Just came back a little bit ago from vacationing in Hawaii, Oahu. We love it so much, it was our fourth time there. Okay, about your sully. The humidity is not bad for him. In fact, if you read Toms threads below in my post, you will learn how he should have been raised since hatching. An aquarium also is not a bad choice, because it does hold humidity well. Just be sure the high humidity is also with temps no lower them 80. Cold and humid makes a sick tort. Hot and humid makes a smooth, healthy tort, along with a good diet too.
 

Flipper

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Your yard sounds nice :)

I'm looking forward to pics :tort:
 

Yvonne G

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Hi, and welcome to the forum!

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C_P808

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Aloha and E komo mai:) Just came back a little bit ago from vacationing in Hawaii, Oahu. We love it so much, it was our fourth time there. Okay, about your sully. The humidity is not bad for him. In fact, if you read Toms threads below in my post, you will learn how he should have been raised since hatching. An aquarium also is not a bad choice, because it does hold humidity well. Just be sure the high humidity is also with temps no lower them 80. Cold and humid makes a sick tort. Hot and humid makes a smooth, healthy tort, along with a good diet too.

It is a great place to live.. besides the fact everything is expensive as heck. Lol. I read the thread and it had a lot of helpful info. I feel like I'm doing an alright job thus far after reading it. I have a lot of the essentials covered. There is just a bit of paranoia in me that I'm missing something. Sort of worried about his diet. My coworkers Sulcata's literally live on store bought greens. Their tortoises seem to be doing fine, but I've read so much about people warning not to raise them that way. So I try to avoid the store stuff and save it as a weekly treat. I have read about feeding your Sulcata veggies like Timothy Hay/Grass and other things I've never heard of. Living in Hawaii, a lot of that kind of roughage isn't always easy to acquire or ship here.
 

C_P808

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As promised, here are the pictures of Chewie! Sorry, he's a little messy in them cause of that darn burrow of his. My one gardening glove in the last picture for size reference.
 

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Yvonne G

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They have horses and cattle in Hawaii. Where you find the different types of grass hay is at feed stores. Look in the Yellow Pages under Feed Dealers.

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C_P808

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They have horses and cattle in Hawaii. Where you find the different types of grass hay is at feed stores. Look in the Yellow Pages under Feed Dealers.

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Good idea. All the typical pet stores here don't carry any special food items like that. Mainly tortoise pellets for stupid prices. There is a feed store in Waimanalo which has a lot of farms and horse stables in that area. I should go down there and check out what they have.

Chewie is precious! :<3: Love your photos :tort:
Thank you, he is like another a member of the family now!
 

wellington

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He looks great. Don't worry too much if you add some grocery greens. If you don't have to, I wouldn't, but there are lots of us that live in the cold states that have to rely on them come winter.
And yes, the prices are high. Your gas is about the same as we pay, but your groceries, well, I had heart pelpitations:D
 
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