Francis's Must-Haves | Francis The Tort

🏡 Home Base

he needs more room than you think

🌳Outdoor Space The big one. A grown sulcata can't live in a tank or a table. He needs a secure outdoor pen with fencing sunk deep, because he will dig under it. Indoors is for babies and cold nights only. See on Amazon →

🪵Indoor Enclosure For a young sulcata or winter, an open-top tortoise table beats a glass tank. He wants floor space and airflow, not four glass walls. See on Amazon →

⛺Hide House A cave to disappear into when he's done with everyone. Size it so a growing sulcata still fits, not a tiny lizard hut. See on Amazon →

🪨 Ground & Substrate

skip the coconut coir

🟫Topsoil (additive-free) Plain organic topsoil, no perlite or fertilizer, mixed with a little play sand and piled deep enough to dig. This mimics his dry home ground. Coconut coir gets sold for every tortoise, but for a dry-climate sulcata it's dusty and pulls moisture off him, so leave it on the shelf. See on Amazon →

🌲Cypress Mulch A clean bagged option to mix in for a diggable floor. Cypress is fine. Avoid bark chips, walnut shell, and pure sand, since he can swallow those and get blocked up. See on Amazon →

◻️Slate Feeding Tile Feed him on a flat tile instead of straight off the dirt. He eats his greens, not a mouthful of substrate, and it files his beak down a little too. See on Amazon →

☀️ Heat & Light

indoors only, sun does the rest outside

💡T5 HO UVB Tube Indoors he needs UVB to build a healthy shell, and it has to be a long T5 HO tube (like a ReptiSun 10.0 or Arcadia 12%), not a little coil bulb. Run it on a timer 10 to 12 hours a day and replace it once a year. Outside in real sunlight he needs none of this. See on Amazon →

🔥Basking Lamp + Fixture A halogen or incandescent basking bulb in a clamp fixture, aimed at one warm spot around 95 to 100°F. Never a heat rock, those burn shells. See on Amazon →

🌡️Temp Gun Point it at the basking spot and read the real surface temp in a second. Guessing is how shells go wrong. See on Amazon →

🌾 Food & Supplements

grass, grass, and more grass

🌾Grass Hay About 90% of a sulcata's diet is grasses and grass hay: timothy, orchard, or oat. Not alfalfa, it's too rich and causes stones. This is the actual staple, not pellets. See on Amazon →

🌱Grazing Seed Mix Grow a patch of edible grasses and weeds for him to graze. Free food forever, closest thing to his wild diet, and the grazing videos film themselves. See on Amazon →

🦴Phosphorus-free Calcium A phosphorus-free calcium powder like Rep-Cal, lightly dusted on his food. The phosphorus-free part matters, because phosphorus blocks the calcium he actually needs. A cuttlebone in the pen is a nice extra. See on Amazon →

🥣Mazuri Pellets (treat only) Mazuri tortoise pellets are fine as an occasional topper, a few times a week at most. They are not the main meal, no matter how the bag is marketed. Grass first, always. See on Amazon →

🛁 Care

soaks and check-ups

💧Shallow Water Dish Low-sided so he can climb in for a soak and climb out without a rescue mission. Sulcatas drink and soak more than people expect. See on Amazon →

🧽Soft Shell Brush A soft toothbrush and lukewarm water is the entire tortoise spa industry. Great during his soaks. See on Amazon →

⚖️Kitchen Scale Monthly weigh-ins are the easiest health check there is. Francis pretends not to care about the number. See on Amazon →

Gear for you, not the tort

Hoodies, tees, and stickers with the official Francis art. Printed fresh and shipped worldwide.

🛍️ Wear the Tort →

This list is set up for a sulcata (African spurred tortoise) like Francis. Other species have different needs, so double-check before you copy it. As an Amazon Associate, Francis earns from qualifying purchases. He spends all of it on lettuce.