- Joined
- Mar 22, 2010
- Messages
- 4
Hi everyone,
Ive owned a young sulcata for about 2-3 months now. Owning him is great and i hope to see him grow old. He seems healthy and eat well. I do have a few concerns though. For the first month or so i fed him exclusively spring mix lettuce. I've recently read that this much "wet" food might be bad for them. I've been trying to feed him ZooMed Natural Tortoise Food. I read the ingredients and it seems to contain alot of the recommended foods for a sulcata with its main ingredients being two types of hay.
My questions stem mostly from the things I feed him. About a month into owning him I picked him up and his shell felt a little soft. I started adding fluker's calcium with D3 to his lettuce in hopes that it would harden up his shell. I also have him on a calcium substrate which ive never seen him eat directly but ive seen it attached to his food sometimes. Apparently its safe for them to digest. The name eludes me but it basically just looks like sand. My questions:
1. Should their shell be completely solid or should it have some flex to it? I feel like he gets alot of calcium in his diet so maybe its just because he's young and his shell is still growing.
2. Ive seen conflicting things about the frequency of feeding. Should i feed every day or every other day?
3. He doesnt seem to like the new food but i dont want to put him back on the spring mix. He didnt eat any of it today. Will he eventually if i just wait it out or should i try to step him down with a mix of the old food and the new?
4. Since the calcium i use has D3 is it necessary for me to use my UVB bulb? Im a student and i think running both the UVB and Basking bulb all day doubled my electric bill.
5. Oh and how much calcium is enough. The book that i own and the container itself has no instructions about dosage relative to age.
Ive owned a young sulcata for about 2-3 months now. Owning him is great and i hope to see him grow old. He seems healthy and eat well. I do have a few concerns though. For the first month or so i fed him exclusively spring mix lettuce. I've recently read that this much "wet" food might be bad for them. I've been trying to feed him ZooMed Natural Tortoise Food. I read the ingredients and it seems to contain alot of the recommended foods for a sulcata with its main ingredients being two types of hay.
My questions stem mostly from the things I feed him. About a month into owning him I picked him up and his shell felt a little soft. I started adding fluker's calcium with D3 to his lettuce in hopes that it would harden up his shell. I also have him on a calcium substrate which ive never seen him eat directly but ive seen it attached to his food sometimes. Apparently its safe for them to digest. The name eludes me but it basically just looks like sand. My questions:
1. Should their shell be completely solid or should it have some flex to it? I feel like he gets alot of calcium in his diet so maybe its just because he's young and his shell is still growing.
2. Ive seen conflicting things about the frequency of feeding. Should i feed every day or every other day?
3. He doesnt seem to like the new food but i dont want to put him back on the spring mix. He didnt eat any of it today. Will he eventually if i just wait it out or should i try to step him down with a mix of the old food and the new?
4. Since the calcium i use has D3 is it necessary for me to use my UVB bulb? Im a student and i think running both the UVB and Basking bulb all day doubled my electric bill.
5. Oh and how much calcium is enough. The book that i own and the container itself has no instructions about dosage relative to age.