Soaking One Year Old Sulcata

[Nickolas]

This is his/her routine. I take Jethro Gibbs in the yard and garden to snack on clover, grasses, purslane, zucchini leaves, lettuce, dandelion and radish greens. After he is done with breakfast, he gets a 20 minute soak. Then he goes back into his enclosure for the middle part of the day. We usually do something similar in the evening, but sometimes offer mazuri instead of the usual. We also add in some collard greens, watermelon, and bell peppers every once in a while. He gets a soak in the evening too. I also supplement calcium and vitamins 1-2 times every week. My main question was am I soaking too much. I keep his enclosure at around 70 - 75% humidity and 80-86 temp not including the basking area. This routine seems to work well so far, but I wanted to double check.

 

[Tom]

Age doesn't tell us his size. If its a normal sized one year old, somewhere around 800 grams, then one soak a day is more than enough. Three soaks a week is still plenty at that size. Once a week is enough as long as there is always water available and you are sure the tortoise is drinking.

Having said that, there is absolutely no harm in soaking twice a day if you want to. Its just not "necessary".

I wouldn't feed the watermelon, but everything else sounds great.

Humidity should be up over 80% indoors, but all else sounds good.

 

[Nickolas]

He is actually only around 140 grams...the breeder I got him from was false advertising that he was rehoming him, when he was really raising him incorrectly and selling/"rehoming" his toroises' offspring at above average price. He has shown about 8 grams of weight increase in the past 3-4 days. I hope I am able to turn him around into a very healthy tortoise. He advertised him as rehoming a 4 inch sulcata. He did not specify age though until I questioned him. I found out who he really was after I got the tortoise, so I figure the best I can do now is make sure that Jethro is properly taken care of.