![]() “They’re personable, they’re entertaining, they know their names,” Tellem said. Tellem calls them “hard dogs,” and Tank comes when he’s called. Which is not to say that the sweet and friendly animals never make good pets. Even sliding doors can be a problem: Tellem had to put up a wall between Tank and the house when he figured out how to slide the glass and screen doors open with his legs to get inside. Any place you see a wall, there’s some reason with a sulcata,” Susan Tellem, American Tortoise Rescue’s co-founder, explained as she showed me a deep hole Tank had dug recently. Even kept with the best intentions, sulcatas might develop deformed shells, or tear up drywall and backyards. Pet stores sometimes tell customers that the animals stay small if kept in a small tank (they don’t), that they can eat anything vegetarian (they can’t), and that if they get too big, a zoo will take them (a myth that zookeepers are sick of debunking). Like “teacup” pig buyers, prospective sulcata owners are often burdened with significant misinformation. Properly cared for, males can grow to over 200 pounds, females around half that. According to the 9,250-person-strong Facebook group Sulcata Tortoises, the animals are “no trouble at all.”īut they don’t stay small for long. Stick it in a fish tank with a UV light and some lettuce, and you’re good to go. Wherever you live in the United States, and whatever the climate, you can buy your very own sulcata in a pet store for between $50 and $200. ![]()
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