large sulcata

[jeffbens0n]

http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/pet/2348535166.html

This guy is pretty close to me...to bad I don't have the means to house a sulcata like this in the winter. Poor guy looks like he is kept inside on someones hardwood floors all the time. I don't think this sulcata looks 20 years old either. Wouldn't he be a little bigger at that age? I guess he could have been stunted from poor care but he doesn't look to be in to bad of shape.

 

[SnakeyeZ]

Beautiful tortoise... seems to be lots of sulcata's for sale all the time down there. He doesn't appear to be in bad shape though.

 

[Tom]

The whole ad is inaccurate. 20" and 80 lbs? Not physically possible. At 20" mine felt heavy as rocks and weighed around 40 pounds. $1900? Adult sulcatas are usually free to a good home. Where did he get that number? And the age. No way to verify it, but it does not look like a 20 year old tortoise to me.

I wish him good luck finding a better home for the tortoise. At least he's doing that part right.

 

[TortieLuver]

I agree. It's always hard to determine age for sure. I believe in the slow, steady growth and not over-feeding. However, I have seen some tortoises in rescue that are 12+ inches at age 1. They have shell deformaties though from that fast of growth. The shell doesn't look bad at all. I hope he finds a good home. Re-homing fee or price he came up with is high. It's hard to decide on a "re-homing" price, as I can understand. People want to find good homes and want people who are responsible and have the financial means to take care of their tortoise. I can't stand when someone replies to an ad I have for hatchlings and say they can't afford the price of the hatchling, but they can give them a good home. If you can't afford $50 for the tortoise, how can you afford to take care of them life-long...a UVB bulb costs more than that for a good one.

 

[Tom]

Very good points Christy.

You have really seen a 12 month old 12" sulcata? Wow. I've never seen them grow THAT fast. If they looked so bad on the outside, I wonder what the inside looked like. Its so easy to take care of them in a 100 different "right" ways, and even following the old, outdated, "bad" info would prevent the kind of abomination you describe. There are a few members of the human race that I just can't understand.