Hello!
My fiancé and I recently purchased a hatchling sulcata at a rep show. This is our fourth tortoise, so we have some experience with torts. The first week we had it, it was very active, friendly, and had a great appetite. But after another week, it became sluggish and refused to eat. We also noticed strange wart-like bumps popping up all over the softer skin around the neck and legs, but it seemed to be shedding these growths out and hasn't developed any on its new skin. We visited a vet and he suggested we tweak our light setup to provide more warmth so we did, but it has been two weeks now without much improvement.
Setup:
We have it in a plastic tub that's roughly 3' by 2'. We changed our substrate to coconut coir to retain some moisture. The tort has a hide big enough to turn around it and a large shallow water dish it can climb in and out of. We have a red basking spot providing a bask temp of 100-110 at the most and then a smaller light that helps keep the rest of the cage at 90-100 during the day. At night we've been keeping the red basking light on to keep the temps up.
Diet:
We started it on Mazori tortoise pellets and it was eating them in the beginning along with grass and mixed greens. We also soak it every day for at least an hour in warm water, sometimes 2.
We are really at a loss as to what else we can do and just really want to know what's wrong. If you need any more information just let me know. Any help is much appreciated!
My fiancé and I recently purchased a hatchling sulcata at a rep show. This is our fourth tortoise, so we have some experience with torts. The first week we had it, it was very active, friendly, and had a great appetite. But after another week, it became sluggish and refused to eat. We also noticed strange wart-like bumps popping up all over the softer skin around the neck and legs, but it seemed to be shedding these growths out and hasn't developed any on its new skin. We visited a vet and he suggested we tweak our light setup to provide more warmth so we did, but it has been two weeks now without much improvement.
Setup:
We have it in a plastic tub that's roughly 3' by 2'. We changed our substrate to coconut coir to retain some moisture. The tort has a hide big enough to turn around it and a large shallow water dish it can climb in and out of. We have a red basking spot providing a bask temp of 100-110 at the most and then a smaller light that helps keep the rest of the cage at 90-100 during the day. At night we've been keeping the red basking light on to keep the temps up.
Diet:
We started it on Mazori tortoise pellets and it was eating them in the beginning along with grass and mixed greens. We also soak it every day for at least an hour in warm water, sometimes 2.
We are really at a loss as to what else we can do and just really want to know what's wrong. If you need any more information just let me know. Any help is much appreciated!
