Yesterday my friend text me about a tortoise he found in his front yard. I thought maybe a sulcata hatching. I went to his house to look at the tortoise. It very small must of hatched only a few weeks ago. Its active and alert. It doesn't seem to.have any spurs at all. Is it a sulcata ? Or is it a desert tortoise ? I don't want him to care for the wrong tortoise. Here are a few pictures. I'll try and have him send me a underside picture .
This is a recently hatched desert tortoise. You can still see the egg tooth. These hatch out of the ground in late September and through October here. They need months of summer heat to incubate in the ground. Its a very nice looking light colored one too!
Make sure he knows to soak it daily, in contrast to what most care sheets for this species say.
I raise them just like this:
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/russian-tortoise-care-sheet.80698/
The only difference is that I offer more grass to DTs than I would a russian.
