Meet Thing 1 and Thing 2. My new sulcata tortoises.

[BitsyNaceyDog]

So sweet! We have 3 sulcatas. In my opinion they are the best tortoises ever.

I'd be careful what you feed them though, they're already pyramiding, which is something you don't want. Most store bought greens shouldn't be fed too often, they really shouldn't be anything more than an occasional treat. And fruit is a no-no all together. One of our three has a pyramided shell from being fed a poor diet before we got him.

http://www.sulcata-station.org/ is a really great site for sulcata info. They list some books on there too.

[luckies4me]

KBlaix, I've only had them for 3 days so not much I can do about what they were fed in the past. One vendor had a small container of about 30 tortoises and amongst them a bearded dragon juvenile, and they had about 4 leafs of lettuce in there they were munching on. They were all walking all over eachother attacking the lettuce.

Yep, already know about the fruit and food list. That was what I had around the first day I got them, and the little guys seemed hungry. Already went to Trader Joe's for a huge shopping spree of animal food. We have great organic farms here too. I live in Eugene. Food is good here. lol. I'm lucky as Trader Joe's is right across the street from my house. Plus everytime I go there it gives me an excuse to buy another orchid. hehe.

I help take care of the Sulcatas at the local pet store during the weekend when we have our petting zoo, and my friend has an 11 year old female named Shelby. I've done plenty of research. When I was growing up we had a neighbor who bred them. They were amazing. Do you have photos of yours? I'd love to see them!

It's nice having another tortoise that I can feed fruit too. Red footed tortoises can actually eat fruit. Skar loves apples, melons, and bananas. Grapes too. It's always on hand because of my gliders.

[luckies4me]

Sweet! I just gave them some grasses and they ate them! I was a little worried because of how they were fed before I got them, but they didn't even care. They'll eat anything in site I think.

[BitsyNaceyDog]

KBlaix, I've only had them for 3 days so not much I can do about what they were fed in the past.

Oh, I know. I didn't mean to sound accusatory. I was just worried the guy who was feeding them poorly in the past would start you off on the wrong foot.

Here are a couple pictures of my guys-
Timmy, eating grass in the yard


you can see the pyramiding in this one (also Timmy)


Here are all 3 (Timmy is the largest, Wally is the mid-sized one, and Beaver is the baby)


It'll be fun getting to see their personalities develop. All 3 of mine are very different. Timmy has a puppy-dog personality, Wally is a bossy, pushy little dude, and Beaver is a shy little man. (You can kind of see Beaver's shyness in the picture, he went in his shell when Wally was passing and I think he was just coming back out when I took the picture.) It'll also be fun for your boys to have the tortoises. Nathan loves ours, especially Timmy.

[luckies4me]

Aww, how sweet. How old is your youngest? It looks to be close to the same age as mine? It's funny, my red footed is totally scared of the babies. I took some pics of all three of them together. I'll post them here in a bit.

[cassiesmom]

Do sulcata tortoises require a vegetarian diet? What is their shell made of, that it can grow so abnormally due to an improper diet? How sad that they are so little and already someone has taken less than the optimal care of them. I read the article in luckies4me's post - that they need warm temperatures, they don't always move slowly (was Aesop wrong?) and no, they don't swim, which is contrary to what I thought. A very dumb question, are tortoises and turtles different?

[luckies4me]

LOL my two little guys are doing great!!! They already have their favorite things to eat, and can be a little picky.They will not eat any of their hay unless I spray it first. Yesterday morning I was getting ready for work and one of the little guys made this huge yawn. It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen. Totally made my heart melt.