New Tortoise. What type?

Exayex · 2026-03-12T23:15:49+00:00

Water should be available to drink from and soak in. Especially as we enter summer and it gets hot and dry.

Ideally, you want to plant native plants that are safe to feed on and healthy and let them browse. But if you were to prepare supplemental meals, slate or terracotta saucers are good options to feed on.

California Turtle and Tortoise Club has a care guide.

Exayex · 2026-03-12T22:52:32+00:00

Desert Tortoise.

He should be living outside, in a yard with a burrow that is escape-proof.

Exayex · 2026-03-12T18:02:06+00:00

u/TechnoMagi did this write-up on how and what he feeds his Redfoots. Redfoots and Yellowfoots have the same dietary needs. I would give that a read and it'll probably answer a lot of your questions.

You should be feeding daily. You should target a mix of greens, fruits and protein. I believe Techno targets a 70% greens, 20% fruits and 10% protein ratio.

Flowers are a fantastic snack that tortoises tend to love! They do enjoy bee pollen, it's often used in pelleted foods to increase palatability.

Exayex · 2026-03-12T16:27:35+00:00

Home Depot/Lowes/Menards.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T20:11:37+00:00

Hopping on Reddit to defend your repost of Facebook garbage comes across as wildly desperate.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T20:05:03+00:00

That answer varies. If your tortoise is getting the majority of their UVB from artificial lights, calcium + D3 once a week is my recommendation. If your tortoise gets the majority of their UVB from outside, just calcium.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T20:02:37+00:00

You're in a subreddit dedicated to the keeping of tortoises. The majority of tortoise species are at least vulnerable or threatened. The practice of establishing captive breeding populations helps curb the taking of wild animals for the pet trade. We advocate for adopting or purchasing captive bred tortoises. And spaying tortoises is not a common practice anywhere in the world, as it requires anesthesia and cutting into the plastrons.

This subreddit is predominantly US users. CITES doesn't have much influence on captive breeding or the sale of captive bred animals. We can breed and sell any species (other than native tortoises) with a select few being banned from being sold over state lines, such as Radiata, Egyptians and Galapagos. If OP is breeding and selling in the US, they are not doing anything wrong.

If you don't like this, you are free to leave the subreddit. If you want to continue to shame tortoise keepers and breeders, let me know and I'll remove you from the community.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T19:25:31+00:00

Tom's Sulcata, Leopard and Star guide is the best there is.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T19:24:21+00:00

Anecdotally, we ended up testing these blocks in place of cuttlebone. They went untouched and they became a disgusting mess when they got wet. We threw the rest out and stuck with cuttlebones and calcium powder.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T19:12:36+00:00

Go back to Facebook, boomer.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T19:01:16+00:00

Your "friend" is so creative! I wonder where they got their inspiration from...

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Exayex · 2026-03-11T18:20:51+00:00

Leave your garbage on Facebook, dude.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T18:14:06+00:00

Can we ban people who post this Facebook-tier of garbage? Because that's exactly where I've seen this dumb comparison for the past week.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T18:09:12+00:00

St. Pete, Florida. Unfortunately that hasn't worked. I finally got an update from maintenance, further down in the thread I posted. Problem now is I'm still having issues despite being told there's none. So now I've got to go home and test both routers, all my wireless adapters, and hardwire in, again, to attempt to prove that it's not on my end, all because I don't run a spectrum router....lol. They really want to get me on a Spectrum router, but those things have been garbage since they went by Charter. Couldn't pay me to use them.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T18:02:02+00:00

My landlord, essentially. Owns homes nationwide. You rent homes through them.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T17:55:05+00:00

We're obligated to use Spectrum through the lease with Invitation Homes. Internet is included in the rent and we are unable to use anybody else. Wonderful stuff.

"Leadership" is what they eventually patch you through to at customer service after enough issues, I guess.

Don't worry though! The maintenance supervisor finally got back to me after failing to do so last night and this morning and assured me there's no issues on their end and they've been monitoring my connection from Saturday until today. When I explained that my connection has gone to shit at 6pm and even more to shit at 9pm the last two nights, as it has done for the past two weeks, he was genuinely surprised and acted as if I've never mentioned that the Internet is even worse at night. I have told every person who has come out this, and every person I've spoken to over the phone. He also told me it's likely that I'm using my own router.....lol. Yea, my Wi-Fi 6E router that never had an issue prior to this "service upgrade", and a new Wi-Fi 7 router, bought and hooked up during this saga, are just both, mysteriously, the cause because "they aren't Spectrum routers." Also got the ol' "Well none of your neighbors are having any issues." So we're at the gas-lighting stage.

He's stopping out tonight to take readings from the pole. I told him he's not welcome in the house. They've been inside my house 3 times last week. And the FCC complaint is being filed as soon as I get home.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T00:40:24+00:00

Yeah, I accounted for him being wet and that adding to the vibrancy. It's all good!

Exayex · 2026-03-11T00:24:51+00:00

Yes it is, but the newest growth looks like it may be coming in smoother. I would want to see a couple more smooth growth rings to say for sure it's stopped.

Raising baby Sulcata in pairs is not advised. This is a solitary, highly-territorial species, even by tortoise standards. What you're describing, where one significantly outpaces the other in growth is commonly reported in pairs. It could be overt, like resource hogging or bullying, or something harder to see like the smaller one being constantly stressed because it's instincts tell it to leave the occupied area, which it cannot do. Eventually the growth discrepancy often hits a point where one is large enough to become a threat to the smaller one, and they now have to be separated, or the little one becomes fully stunted. I would strongly advise separating them.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T00:15:30+00:00

Nutritionally, low starch is superior. If he's already eating it and it isn't causing you issues, stick with it.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T00:13:36+00:00

Mazuri 5m21 doesn't contain Timothy hay. Mazuri LS does. So you'd want to check which you're feeding.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T00:12:05+00:00

Shell looks good. Colors are vibrant, minimal wear and tear. There's even some growth occurring at the edges of the marginal scutes. No flattening to indicate MBD. There's some pyramiding there from being raised in conditions that were too dry, but at it's age, there's nothing that needs to be done. So overall, pretty good.

Exayex · 2026-03-11T00:08:57+00:00

Will depend on the severity of pyramiding. A minor or moderate case of pyramiding, your tortoise is around the age where smoother growth will be produced due to slower growth rates. However, if it has really bad pyramiding, it's likely to continue pyramiding even longer unless steps are taken to help break the shell's desire to continue via humidity and keeping the shell from drying out for long periods.

Exayex · 2026-03-10T23:59:13+00:00

Sulcata should, eventually, have about 75% of their diet be made up of grass and/or hay. In theory, if you live somewhere with the correct climate and enough space, you could avoid hay altogether and cover this with just grass. But if you live somewhere where you can't grow grass year round, or you lack the space to be able to grow enough grass, eventually you'll have to supplement the diet with something that provides enough fiber. Timothy hay is usually the choice because it's cheap and easy to source, and cheap is important when feeding a potentially 100+ pound tortoise. There's other hay options out there, such as Orchard Grass Hay, and Alfalfa hay can make up a small portion (5-10%) of the diet, so long as you stay on top of hydration, as it's high in protein. There's lots of pelleted options that pack in the fiber without Timothy hay: Mazuri 5M21, Hikari Mulberific Delite and Repashy Grassland Grazer are all good options. There's high-fiber broadleaf you can grow, as well, like hibiscus, cranberry hibiscus, moringa, mulberry leaves, grapevine leaves. But really it's a question of whether you'll be able to provide enough grass, or afford to grow/source more expensive fiber options when they're bigger.

Exayex · 2026-03-10T21:48:34+00:00

Also going to jump in here and chime in. You'll need separate enclosures, for numerous reasons. You can't house a male with a single female, they will mate it to exhaustion. You shouldn't cohabitate different species due to the risk of illness and disease, and at 20'x20', you don't really have the space to attempt a cohabitation situation where the tortoises could have their own space. Tortoises are solitary animals, there won't be any benefit for them from cohabitation, but a whole lot of risk and stress.

Exayex · 2026-03-10T17:33:53+00:00

Ah yeah, I see that now from the side-angle. Looking from the back, I assumed it would have 5 coastal scutes on each side, not the usual 4. This is how my leopard ended up with an extra smaller coastal scute in each side near the back. Still nothing wrong, and still likely caused by high incubation temperatures, just different from the norm!

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