the_dude_abides
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2013
- Messages
- 17
Howdy. For my first post i wanted to introduce myself (I'm Kris) and our new Tortoise. We have been wanting a sulcata for a while now, and we finally jumped in after some extensive research and discussion for at least a month leading up to the purchase.
My wife and i have been married for almost 5 years, we have two little girls 3 and 4 years old. They are tortoise fans big time. We live in northern CA, about 15 miles north of Sacramento.
We purchased the little tort from a reptile shop in Roseville, CA on Dec 20th 2013. He's/She's a Sulcata and approximately 3 months old. We named him Aleister Crowley, and all has been going great so far.
Eating fescue and clovers from the front lawn, until his seed mix comes from sulcatafood.com. Soaking daily, eating daily, and my wife gets him out of his table to run around either in the living room and/or the yard to graze as much as we can. He gets a lot of face time with us, he seems to like hanging out with my wife when we are all in the living room doing various activities. Aleister always has his head up and out trying to see the goings on in the room. Its pretty cute that he's so curious.
As far as setup goes, I think i did pretty well on the first go around. 50/50 organic top soil and coconut, with a little orchard grass hay mixed in. 100w Mercury Vapor Heat/UV bulb. I keep a corded temp probe mostly in is hide, but i move it farily often from heat side to cool side to keep tabs on the temps all around the pen. Trying to keep it between 75 and 85 degrees F. Hotspot under the lamp is about 90. I am still playing with the light positioning, but he seems to be happy with the temps. I havent seen him drink water very much on his own, so i keep everything nice and moist. However, he will sip water here and there during a soak.
Lurking on tortoise forum has been a great resource for me, and the best piece of advice i can take away from reading here and other sulcata sites is NEVER listen to the pet stores lol. Literally everything they told me was incorrect. But i just smile and nod, and say "ok thanks for the info", and continue searching for products with the forum/internet pulled up quick draw style on my phone.
Open to suggestions from experienced owners, couple things I'm trying out is the slate under the lamp, and the exact positioning of his hide. I also want to use more coconut and less top soil next time, and i will most likely nix the grass hay for now all together as a substrate.
So without and further adieu, here's Aleister crowley!
Setup:
Curious little guy (or gal):
Baskin':
Having a Soak:
First Night:
My wife and i have been married for almost 5 years, we have two little girls 3 and 4 years old. They are tortoise fans big time. We live in northern CA, about 15 miles north of Sacramento.
We purchased the little tort from a reptile shop in Roseville, CA on Dec 20th 2013. He's/She's a Sulcata and approximately 3 months old. We named him Aleister Crowley, and all has been going great so far.
Eating fescue and clovers from the front lawn, until his seed mix comes from sulcatafood.com. Soaking daily, eating daily, and my wife gets him out of his table to run around either in the living room and/or the yard to graze as much as we can. He gets a lot of face time with us, he seems to like hanging out with my wife when we are all in the living room doing various activities. Aleister always has his head up and out trying to see the goings on in the room. Its pretty cute that he's so curious.
As far as setup goes, I think i did pretty well on the first go around. 50/50 organic top soil and coconut, with a little orchard grass hay mixed in. 100w Mercury Vapor Heat/UV bulb. I keep a corded temp probe mostly in is hide, but i move it farily often from heat side to cool side to keep tabs on the temps all around the pen. Trying to keep it between 75 and 85 degrees F. Hotspot under the lamp is about 90. I am still playing with the light positioning, but he seems to be happy with the temps. I havent seen him drink water very much on his own, so i keep everything nice and moist. However, he will sip water here and there during a soak.
Lurking on tortoise forum has been a great resource for me, and the best piece of advice i can take away from reading here and other sulcata sites is NEVER listen to the pet stores lol. Literally everything they told me was incorrect. But i just smile and nod, and say "ok thanks for the info", and continue searching for products with the forum/internet pulled up quick draw style on my phone.
Open to suggestions from experienced owners, couple things I'm trying out is the slate under the lamp, and the exact positioning of his hide. I also want to use more coconut and less top soil next time, and i will most likely nix the grass hay for now all together as a substrate.
So without and further adieu, here's Aleister crowley!
Setup:
Curious little guy (or gal):
Baskin':
Having a Soak:
First Night: