baby sulcata died after two weeks and I can not determine why... please help

[Trinaroberts]

We have had two tortoises die in a month period of time. The first one we bought never seemed healthy. Hardly moved and I never saw his eyes open. He only lived for about a week then he passed but when he passed I wasn’t to alarmed because he never acted normal. So We purchased a second baby sulcata for my sons birthday who he named Rocky. Rocky seemed very healthy and ate well. As time went on he stopped moving as much and stopped eating. We were soaking him about every 3 days in warm water for around 15 minutes. We have a red heating lamp on one side of the cage and a uvb lamp on the other. We also bought a humidifier and kept the humidity around 80% and the temperature ranged from 75-80 degrees in the day. At night we turned on a black light and cage stayed around 70 degrees. We feed him store bought grass pellets, which we soaked to make them easier to eat but he never seemed to eat those. At first He loved eating cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce(very sparingly) cabbage and carrots. We feed him a small piece of watermelon once. His cage has eco earth and coco husk throughout it. He also has a cave made out of fake rock he can go in to get out of the heat. He has a bowl of water we leave in there so he can soak( which he hardly ever went into, actually only found him in there once). Cage is made out of an old dresser we gutted and turned into an enclosed for him. We used styrofoam to form the fake rocks coated with tile grout. (Saw this idea on Pinterest)
Poor little guy only made it about two and a half weeks before we found him dead. We had just soaked him the day before. Please help on any ideas of why he died so fast. Could the styrofoam-tile grout be poisonous? Wrong food? Temp? We can’t figure out where we went wrong. My son is devastated, actually cried himself to sleep. I want to get him another tortious but need to figure out where we are doing wrong. Both turtles came from the same breeder.

 

[crimson_lotus]

Hello and sorry to hear about your tortoises! I do not keep sulcatas but I can tell you a few issues I have noticed from reading your post:

-temps are too low for sure, especially with the addition of humidity and particularly for a hatchling. instead of using a humidifier, you should add some water to the substrate which will create its humidity when exposed to the heat lamps. humidifiers aren't great for tortoise care.
-red lights are also not ideal as they can confuse the tortoise to ingest substrate as food.
-food was also not ideal. I will post a guide at the end of this message which can provide you with the right info on this
-I think soaking could have been more frequent. For adult tortoises I think every 3 days is satisfactory but its more crucial for babies.
-I personally would not put styrofoam in my enclosure as I feel like it could potentially be toxic especially when exposed to heat, and in a closed chamber.

Even with this new info we will provide you on the forum, sometimes babies just die depending on how the breeder raised them up to that point. If you don't mind sharing who the breeder was, it might help us figure out what went wrong- 1.("hatchling failure syndrome" from a breeder that does not raise babies properly) or 2. if it's something else entirely such as temperature, respiratory infection, etc.

there has also been a deadly fungal/bacterial disease recently going around in a breeder's sulcata population, so if you saw any bumps on his skin it would be good to know.

If you were to adopt or buy an adult tortoise you would not have to worry about these issues as much.

Here is the care sheet for raising sulcatas: https://www.tortoiseforum.org/threa...se-a-sulcata-leopard-or-star-tortoise.181497/

good luck! you have stumbled upon an excellent resource for tortoise care

 

[Hamiltondood]

We have had two tortoises die in a month period of time. The first one we bought never seemed healthy. Hardly moved and I never saw his eyes open. He only lived for about a week then he passed but when he passed I wasn’t to alarmed because he never acted normal. So We purchased a second baby sulcata for my sons birthday who he named Rocky. Rocky seemed very healthy and ate well. As time went on he stopped moving as much and stopped eating. We were soaking him about every 3 days in warm water for around 15 minutes. We have a red heating lamp on one side of the cage and a uvb lamp on the other. We also bought a humidifier and kept the humidity around 80% and the temperature ranged from 75-80 degrees in the day. At night we turned on a black light and cage stayed around 70 degrees. We feed him store bought grass pellets, which we soaked to make them easier to eat but he never seemed to eat those. At first He loved eating cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce(very sparingly) cabbage and carrots. We feed him a small piece of watermelon once. His cage has eco earth and coco husk throughout it. He also has a cave made out of fake rock he can go in to get out of the heat. He has a bowl of water we leave in there so he can soak( which he hardly ever went into, actually only found him in there once). Cage is made out of an old dresser we gutted and turned into an enclosed for him. We used styrofoam to form the fake rocks coated with tile grout. (Saw this idea on Pinterest)
Poor little guy only made it about two and a half weeks before we found him dead. We had just soaked him the day before. Please help on any ideas of why he died so fast. Could the styrofoam-tile grout be poisonous? Wrong food? Temp? We can’t figure out where we went wrong. My son is devastated, actually cried himself to sleep. I want to get him another tortious but need to figure out where we are doing wrong. Both turtles came from the same breeder.

i don't want to be rude, but there were many problems
the lighting, food, and temps

lighting -
the red bulbs are definitely not good for sulcatas, i can't explain it very well but it kind of confused the tortoise into thinking the substrate is food (or something along the lines of that). you can use a 65 watt incandescent bulb for heat.
the uvb bulb is also incorrect. you should've used a uvb bulb strip, preferably the arcadia t5 uvb strip light.

temperature and humidity -
under the basking spot, it shouldve been 100-105, the cold side should've been 80. you can get it to stay at 80 at night using a CHE hooked up to a thermostat. 70 degrees is too cold for a hatchling sulcata. a humidifier also shouldn't be used.

food -
young sulcatas might not eat grass at first, they won't until it's much older. cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, etc aren't recommended. here's a list of greens you shouldve fed him (compiled by tom):
Other items that are good for babies and young sulcatas:
Mulberry leaves
Grape vine leaves
Hibiscus leaves
African hibiscus leaves
Blue hibiscus leaves
Rose of Sharon leaves
Rose leaves
Geraniums
Gazanias
Lavatera
Pansies
Petunias
Hostas
Honeysuckle
Cape honeysuckle
Leaves and blooms from any squash plant, like pumpkin, cucumber, summer squash, etc...
Young spineless opuntia cactus pads

Weeds:
There are soooooooo many...
Dandelion
Mallow
Filaree
Smooth Sow thistle
Prickly Sow thistle
Milk thistle
Goat head weed
Cats ear
Nettles
Trefoil
Wild onion
Wild mustard
Wild Garlic
Clovers
Broadleaf plantain
Narrow leaf plantain
Chick weed
Hawksbit
Hensbit
Hawksbeard

Other good stuff:
"Testudo Seed Mix" from http://www.tortoisesupply.com/SeedMixes
Pasture mixes or other seeds from http://www.groworganic.com/seeds.html
Homegrown alfalfa
Mazuri Tortoise Chow
ZooMed Grassland Tortoise Food

other -
you should soak any species of tortoise (especially hatchlings) every day for 30 minutes.
what breeder did you get him from?
another probably was that you made the hide out of foam, not a very good material to use. any plastic tub with an opening cut into it would be fine. no moss should be used, just wet the substrate every morning. for the enclosure, you can use a 90 dollar grow tent next time. just flip it on the side and use it like that. @Markw84 also makes GREAT enclosures for tortoises.

here are some great links that can provide even more info

For Those Who Have a Young Sulcata...

Over and over I type up and answer diet questions and try to get people feeding the right stuff, but I find that the "norm" is grocery store food. Grocery store food is expensive, a hassle to obtain, and very low on the list of what is best for sulcatas. These tortoises are GRASS eaters. From...

tortoiseforum.org

"Hatchling Failure Syndrome"

I've heard this term for many years and I don't like it. Its a way to excuse our ignorance and failure. I will agree that an occasional hatchling is born that is just not going to make it no matter what anybody does, but MOST of them, if they make it full term and hatch, SHOULD survive and...

tortoiseforum.org

Closed "Chambers"

Been meaning to do this one for a while now... Over the years I have kept a lot of reptiles in a lot of different ways. I've learned a lot of stuff about a lot of species. Since finding and joining this forum almost two years ago, I've learned a TON more. Now I'm not just stumbling around...

tortoiseforum.org

The Best Way To Raise A Sulcata, Leopard, Or Star Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. Babies hatch during the...

tortoiseforum.org

i did an awful job at explaining everything but i hope helps a little

 

[Maro2Bear]

Greetings, the other posters have already provided you with many of the issues that you weren’t doing properly Taking care of.

Your own paragraph of info highlighted a lot of those concerns -

We were soaking him about every 3 days in warm water for around 15 minutes. We have a red heating lamp on one side of the cage and a uvb lamp on the other. We also bought a humidifier and kept the humidity around 80% and the temperature ranged from 75-80 degrees in the day. At night we turned on a black light and cage stayed around 70 degrees. We feed him store bought grass pellets, which we soaked to make them easier to eat but he never seemed to eat those. At first He loved eating cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce(very sparingly) cabbage and carrots. We feed him a small piece of watermelon once.​

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✅ Soaking should have been daily, red heating lamp wasnt good, humidifier coupled with too low temps was bad, 75-80 ambient temps too low, night time temp of 70 too low, & a bad diet. All of these issues probably lead to your tort not surviving.

@Tom ‘s Sully care sheet (linked above) provides all the right parameters for raising a hatchling Sulcata.

Hope you can try again after reading through the care guides here.

Good luck

 

[Ink]

I am sorry for your loss.

 

[Yossarian]

Also sorry for your loss. I hope you will take the advice above constructively if you are considering starting over. It is easy to be defensive and I see it all the time but we only comment and offer these criticisms because we care about the Torts, it is not personal.

 

[Pastel Tortie]

@Trinaroberts Do you mind sharing where you got the two babies from?

 

[MenagerieGrl]

Trina,
I'm so sorry for your losses, I recently lost my Eastern Hermann's. He/She was under Vet care for 3 weeks, but ultimately passed. So, I feel your pain....I wish you peace...