Hello everybody!

[turbo916]

My name is Emily and my three week old Sulcata hatchling, Archimedes (Archie) and I live on five acres in sunny California! We live in Northern California, near Sacramento. It is so great this place exists, I was so overwhelmed trying to read up on this little guy!

I guess my main question would be regarding lighting, Archie spends his day in a 100 gallon horse trough in grass hay in morning sun and afternoon shade. He has a box and a humid hide, I'll post pictures later. At night I have him in one of those under the bed containers with his box, outside under a red light. Is the red light necessary if he spends most of the day outside? I take him to graZe like an our or two everyday and feed him endive and dandilion greens, until some of the stuff I planted grows it only gets about 65 degrees at lowest at night here.

Please introduce yourselves, thanks for having me!

 

[dmmj]

Welcome to the forum, I hope you enjoy your visits here. Enjoy holding him like that now, soon you won't be able to.

 

[Blakem]

Crazy! I would be so nervous at three weeks. It is so tiny! I am only 1 hour from sac! What a great area to live in. You must. E in the country because I know that town doesn't have very much country.

 

[Julius25]

Welcome =)

 

[Arizona Sulcata]

Welcome!

 

[Jacqui]

Hi! He looks so tiny in there. I have to chuckle at David saying to enjoy him being so little because it won't last long, how true.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Emily:

Welcome to the Tortoise Forum!!

May I suggest that you get rid of the hay substrate and use something that you can moisten? Baby sulcatas do much better on a substrate that is moist. It helps them grow smoothly.

 

[turbo916]

Thanks everybody! I'm trying to choose a substrate, I want to buy Bed A beast but I want to do several inches of soil underneath, would a natural and organic potting soil like Green All Potting Soil be OK (it's comprised of bat guano, chicken manure, feathermeal and the like) Or should I just use like regular topsoil, comprised of mostly sand and natural material? I also have a cactus mix that is made up of mostly sand but I don't see that holding much moisture. I'm soaking him twice a day in the meantime.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Welcome!

 

[pam]

Welcome

 

[turbo916]

Ok so I replaced the grass hay with coco coir I bought at work: that stuff is awesome! I am going to use that for everything from now on! But when I was replacing the substrate, my red bulb broke and now I am heatsource-less. It's only going to get 64 degrees outside tonight, but what should I do to keep him warm? It's 74 degrees inside the house, will he be ok inside without the light or outside with a 25degree blue light I found? AHHH My nightmare!

 

[turbo916]

Ok, here's some pictures of the improvements I made to Archie's enclosure. I used a terra cotta pot and buried half of it. I did the same with a large pulp pot and put his humid hide inside. I buried everything in the coco coir, as you can see in the pictures, he seems much, much happier