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daglapsy

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Mar 1, 2014
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Hello everyone, my name is Alli and I live in San Francisco, California. We just recently welcomed a leopard tortoise hatchling into the family. His/her name is Saxon and he/she is a 8 week old ball of adorable! I've had dogs and cats for years, but this is my first experience with reptiles.

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My boyfriend and I are both pretty smitten already. We were surprised to see how extroverted this little hatchling turned out to be. He/she doesn't seem to be afraid of anything and has a ferocious appetite. He'll gladly eat a piece of zucchini out of the hands of someone who he has never even met before.

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We're using a 30 gallon terrarium (for now) with a 50:50 ratio cypress mulch and coconut coir combination for the substrate. We have provided a humid hide at 78-80 degrees, a shaded area at 80-85 degrees, open ground at 90-95 degrees, and a slate for basking at 100 degrees. We keep the humidity between 75-85%. We have a 10.0 UV light on a 12 hour timer cycle and a ceramic heat element. We provide a shallow water dish and food bowl that stay inside the terrarium. We feed him once a day in the morning a combination of organic spring mix or organic collard greens and a ground pellet of ZooMed grassland tortoise food on top of a cut-up moistened pile of either timothy hay, orchard grass, or bermuda grass. There's always food left over at the end of the day. I know I need to improve the variety of the diet, but I'm depending on grocery store foods until I figure out access to prickly pear cactus, dandelion greens and clovers.

I apologize for how long this post is, but it's very important to me that I give the best life possible to this little one. I would love to hear any constructive criticism, corrections or tips anyone has to offer me. I've been working hard on doing my research and I'm here to learn from all you wonderfully experienced veterans. This is all new to me so any words of wisdom would be appreciated. Thanks for reading! :D:tort::p
 
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wellington

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Hello and Welcome:). All I can say for now is to read Toms threads below in my post. Sounds like you may have already found them though. Also, a larger water dish might be a little better then what I think is the water dish in the pics. Otherwise sounds like your on the right track.
 

Grandpa Turtle 144

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Hello Alli welcome to the TFO from AZ . Leopards rule !ImageUploadedByTortForum1394971589.511479.jpg
 
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Yvonne G

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Hi Allie, and welcome to the Forum!
 

Tom

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Hello and welcome. Sounds like you are doing pretty well so far.

Diet wise, I would skip the hay and add more variety. Hay is more for adult sulcatas. Most leopards won't just walk up and eat a pile of hay. Its not bad for them by any means, they just usually won't eat it. Look for endive and escarole at the store. Those are really good for them to. Weeds, leaves and tortoise seed mixes are best. Here are some suggestions:

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



I'd get a bigger enclosure as soon as you can too.
 
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