|
Sulcata FAQ |
If you have a question that you do not see answered on this page, please see www.turtlehomes.org
Q: I have a Sulcata tortoise
and want to know how to better care for it and/or set up a better enclosure
for it. Can you give me
some information?
Q: I would like to help your cause. Can I provide a home
for one of the tortoises currently in your care?
Q: Can I successfully keep a Sulcata indoors if I provide
the proper nutrition?
Q: What do you do when it gets cold outside?
Q:What do you feed
your tortoises?
Q: Do you breed your tortoises?
Q: Do you sell or farm out tortoises donated to you?
Q: How expensive are Sulcatas to maintain?
Q: How quickly do Sulcatas grow?
Q: Do you allow visitors to your facilities?
Q: If I decide my tortoise has outgrown my resources,
what are my options?
Q: What do I need to do to send a tortoise to you?
Q: I have a Sulcata tortoise and want to know how to better care for it and/or set up a better enclosure for it. Can you give me some information?
A: There are several good links to tortoise-related sites on the web. As far as pen construction is concerned, the bigger the better. Some people with tiny yards do their best by giving the tortoises a corner of it, but this really is not enough. A single tortoise can live in a small area, but it will not thrive. Sulcatas like to roam over large areas and graze on a variety of grasses. They like to dig and hide. All these things are impossible in a little yard. It is possible to keep a baby cow alive in a crate and only feed it milk, but unless your planning on eating your tortoise, you should give it plenty of space. By the way, I don't advocate eating your tortoise. Open grassy areas should be provided, preferably with a wide variety of grasses available for grazing. Full sun and shade must be available at all times of day and clean water should also be in constant supply. Sulcatas like to stay relatively dry, so a rain-free area should be in place as well, preferably one that not only keeps off direct rain but also keep a lower general humidity (such as a dog house or similar shelter). Fencing must be strong and must be buried. The smaller your enclosure, the deeper the fence must be buried as your tortoise is more likely to dig along the fence as opposed to in the center of the enclosure. We provide houses for our tortoises under which they may dig as well as placing several big logs in the pen which give them a good starting place to dig. Ours almost never dig near the fences now. We have a concrete feeding slab which we like for feeding them occasional produce. It gives them a good clean surface to eat from and makes cleaning up uneaten food much easier.
We used to keep our little ones in a baby pool (from wal-mart) with drain holes in the bottom, filled 1/2 way with dirt, then planted with grasses and hibiscus. It needs to have sun and shade available at all times. You can even put heavy wire mesh over the top and keep them outside day and night. When they get larger (over 6") you can fence them in. The heavy wire fencing (2" squares at the largest) should be buried at least 6" deep.
Many people in Florida choose to let their tortoises burrow rather than building them winter housing. Our experience shows that the temperatures in the northern half of Florida can get too cold for tortoises to do well. Also, there is the problem of the burrows caving in after a large rain - burrows can be quite large and very difficult to dig a tortoise out of. For this reason, we cave in all of our burrows before cold weather comes (of course, this is done once all of the tortoises are out and accounted for).
Q: I would like to help your cause. Can I provide a home for one of the tortoises currently in your care?
A: No. If you are interested
in obtaining a sulcata, do not buy one! There are plenty in need of homes.
If you live in a warm state, contact Turtlehomes.org
and fill out an adoption application.
Q: Can I successfully keep a Sulcata indoors if I provide the proper nutrition?
A: The answer to this question
depends on how theoretical you want to be, and on your definition of successful.
The short answer is - no. If you kept your tortoise in a very large, properly
heated indoor enclosure, provided it with fresh cut grasses and other greens,
monitored the humidity and provided enough water for bathing as needed,
treated it regularly for the diseases that easily occur in stressed tortoises,
and provided it with large amounts of full spectrum fluorescent lighting,
then yes, you could keep a Sulcata alive for a long time in a miserable
existence. (UV bulbs do not do the same thing that the sun that God created
does.) That's not my definition of successful. That's not to say that those
of you in cooler climates cannot keep them well. If you keep your tortoise
in an indoor pen at night or when it's cold, or even throughout the winter,
you can still do OK by your pet. As long as it gets to spend a majority
of its life outside. We keep our smallest tortoises indoors at night when
the temperature is going to drop below 55 degrees at night, but as soon
as it hits 60 degrees in the morning they're back outside. We have had cold
seasons where they were stuck inside for weeks at a time, and they all do
fine. But they sure are happy to get out again when it warms up, even if
it's just for a few hours. If you live in a region that has long cold winters
(i.e. most of the U.S.) Sulcata tortoises probably aren't the best choice
of pet. Consider a Russian tortoise or Greek tortoise if it's not too late.
They are smaller and have much better cold tolerance.
Q: What do you do when it gets cold outside?
A: Our tortoises have heated
houses. The small tortoises have a house that we built. It is about 90sq.ft
and 2 feet in height. It has ceramic heat bulbs in on the ceiling and heavy
plastic flappers over the door way. The larger tortoises are in a horse
stall that we converted into a tortoise house. We built a rail about 3 feet
off the ground all the way around the stall with a housed space heater in
the middle. The space heater is controlled by a thermostat that is on the
wall. We placed 3" Styrofoam insulation sheets on the rails. This creates
a low insulated ceiling. This house also has the heavy plastic flappers
over the doorway. We go out on cold nights to make sure all of the tortoises
have found their way into the house.
Q :What do you feed your tortoises?
A : I rarely feed them
at all. They feed themselves nicely, thank you. They graze on grasses as
they want and other occasional weeds. I do provide them with produce from
our local market as it is available and as I feel like it. During the summer
maybe once every two months at the most. The market has barrels of "less
than fresh enough to sell" produce out back and I take a bucket and fill
it up with the best of it. I usually aim for greens such as romaine or red
leaf lettuce (NEVER iceberg), broccoli, squash, cucumber, apples, pumpkin,
melons, grapes, strawberries, and bell peppers. I have on occasion fed them
tomatoes, but I don't like to as it seems like they would be too acidic,
but the tortoises like them. But something like 90% of their diet should
come from grazing. (A good test for this is to look at their droppings.
They should look very grassy. I would put up a picture of a healthy tortoise
poop, but that would be a little gross.) We sell an excellent seed mix and
elephant grass for your tortoises. We hope to be adding some other plants
to what we sell next spring. Click here
to view our sale page. A mix high in clover is preferred for forest tortoises
- but desert tortoises, like the sulcata, prefer more of a grassy mix. Buckwheat
also needs to be kept low as it has a high phosphorus content and can interfere
with calcium absorption.
These are desert animals. They do best if the graze on grasses. They also love spineless prickly pear cactus pads (I bought some at publix in the produce section last week). Also, hibiscus flowers and leaves are great. Feed lettuce and other veggies and fruit sparingly. They should only make up about 5% of their diet. Never feed a tortoise any kind of meat product. They are strictly vegetarians. Pumpkins and banana leaves are another favorite. We grow pumpkins every year for the tortoises - it is actually beneficial for them!
For hingebacks, russians, and red/yellow foots, you
will need to provide fruits as well as occasional snails or other protien.
Q : Do you breed your tortoises?
A : No. We are not opposed
to breeding tortoises in captivity. We simply do not think that there is
any need for more Sulcatas in the pet industry, or any other industry, to
justify breeding at this time.
Q : Do you sell or farm out tortoises donated to you?
A : All of our tortoises have been moved to another rescue as we have moved to Ecuador South America
Q : How expensive are Sulcatas to maintain?
A : It depends on a lot
of factors. A really good setup for a Sulcata will keep your maintenance
cost to a minimum. We actually spend very little money on ours considering
how many we have. Our expenses are: electricity to heat winter houses, occasional
additions to the pen (new house, new water pool, etc.), fence maintenance,
and time. The last of which is the only one of any significance, and that's
not a whole lot. (If you lived where it was colder, heating may be more,
but Florida isn't bad.) The time requirements are really just spending time
with the tortoises. They need to get to know you and they need to be observed
for general health. If you keep a Sulcata under poor conditions, your expenses
will go up dramatically. A decent indoor enclosure would cost several hundred
dollars just to begin with. Lighting and medications would also get expensive.
As with most animals, poor living conditions cause lots of stress and stress
leads to susceptibility to disease. A vet bill for a giant tortoise can
be astronomical, if you can find a vet qualified to help. If you can't,
then you have burial expenses as well.
Q : How quickly do Sulcatas grow?
A : There is a very popular
saying about goldfish that says they will only grow to the size of the bowl
you keep them in. This is actually true to a certain extent. If you put
a goldfish whose genetic code tells it to grow to be 24 inches long as an
adult and stick it into a bowl of unfiltered water with a diameter of 8
inches, that fish will not grow to be 24 inches long. The poor water conditions
and stress will slow its growth and the fish will die long before its mature.
The same is true of tortoises. If you keep a Sulcata in a 20 gallon
glass aquarium, he will not grow to be 200 pounds. He will also not live
to be 75 years old (he may be lucky to make it to age 4). He will also not
be very happy (I realize here that I am being somewhat anthropomorphic,
but I am equating the "happiness" of the tortoise to its overall health
and well-being). A well cared for Sulcata will about double in size every
year for the first four or five years and then slow down. My oldest is about
12 years old and he is over a hundred pounds.
Q: Do you allow visitors to your facilities?
A: No
Q: If I decide my tortoise has outgrown my resources, what are my options?
A: One option is to find someone local who has better facilities (or more resources), and allow them to take over the care of your tortoise. Preferably it is someone you know well and can trust. If not, consider signing a legal agreement with them that will allow you to regain possession of your tortoise if you feel they are not providing adequate care. Then follow up with several visits. If that option isn't available, you can send your tortoise to a rescue/adoption facility. When choosing a rescue/adoption facility, consider what that facility has to offer. Find out what the climate is like there, get pictures of the enclosure(s), see if they charge anything for keeping the tortoise, can you visit the facility before or after donating the tortoise? Ask lots of questions and be suspicious if they can't or won't answer them. Then you can choose exactly where to send your pet. Here are a few email contacts of people with outdoor set ups wanting a tortoise. Please let me know if you email any of these people and encounter any problems.
Turtlehomes - a tortoise adoption agency.
Here is a picture of the sulcata enclosure at Silver Springs, FL. There
is no telling how long the tortoise had been like this. We went in ourselves
and flipped the tortoise back over the right way. Just a caution about sending
your sulcatas to a zoo - be sure to check out the facilities and ask a lot
of questions.
Q: What do I need to do to send a tortoise to you?
A :We are currently not accepting new residents. We have moved to Ecuador. www.thewelchfamily.org