So this lady calls me on the phone to see if I know anyone who would take in a couple baby tortoises. Here's the story :
She looked out her kitchen window one day last spring and saw a tiny turtle on the pool coping. She brought it in and set it up in a habitat. She did research and learned how to care for a tortoise. A few days later her small dog brought in another one from the back yard. It wasn't hurt. She took them both to the vet for a check up. The vet was evidently well-versed in tortoise care, thank goodness, having a sulcata of his own. He told her they were sulcata hatchlings and he told her how to care for them.
The people who's yard butts up against hers at the back had three large tortoises, and they recently moved out, taking the tortoises with them. I told her to go around the yard with a fine toothed comb because a clutch of only two eggs is very rare and would be quite unusual. She even looked over the fence into the other yard, but didn't find any more babies.
So, after the vet I.D.'d the babies for her, and she did more online research, she realized that sulcata babies isn't something that would fit into their lifestyle. She is very fond of them and is taking good care of them, with a UV light plus some outside time. I told her of the Christmas Tree storage bin by Iris (she needed to upgrade as what she was using wasn't big enough), and she might keep them for a while longer before bringing them to me.
So sulcata eggs will hatch in the ground here. I wonder where the rest of the babies are.
She looked out her kitchen window one day last spring and saw a tiny turtle on the pool coping. She brought it in and set it up in a habitat. She did research and learned how to care for a tortoise. A few days later her small dog brought in another one from the back yard. It wasn't hurt. She took them both to the vet for a check up. The vet was evidently well-versed in tortoise care, thank goodness, having a sulcata of his own. He told her they were sulcata hatchlings and he told her how to care for them.
The people who's yard butts up against hers at the back had three large tortoises, and they recently moved out, taking the tortoises with them. I told her to go around the yard with a fine toothed comb because a clutch of only two eggs is very rare and would be quite unusual. She even looked over the fence into the other yard, but didn't find any more babies.
So, after the vet I.D.'d the babies for her, and she did more online research, she realized that sulcata babies isn't something that would fit into their lifestyle. She is very fond of them and is taking good care of them, with a UV light plus some outside time. I told her of the Christmas Tree storage bin by Iris (she needed to upgrade as what she was using wasn't big enough), and she might keep them for a while longer before bringing them to me.
So sulcata eggs will hatch in the ground here. I wonder where the rest of the babies are.