Welcome home Tommy!

C.S.I. is still on the job, but nobody has seen Turbo since his mysterious disappearance from our backyard 4 weeks ago. We began the search for a new Tortoise about a week after Turbo vanished. That is when I came across a potential adoption from a family in Tucson. They have several of these gentle giants, however the two larger males she has had together for 7 years where starting to fight over her one female.

After a few days of emailing back and forth and her quizzing me on my knowledge of Sulcatas she agreed to let Claire and I take custody of Tommy.

Tommy is a 9 year old male African Sulcata Tortoise. Very heathly, and incredibly friendly! I drove the hour and half down to Tucson today and picked him up. The drive home was interesting, he spent the trip either trying to climb into the passanger seat or trying to pry my dash from the car.

He is now happily wandering his new home in the back yard. I spent the last three weeks (since Tommy's family agreed to let us have him) building a fence across the back yard and building a HUGE dog house for him to sleep in. He seems very happy in our yard, as soon as I sat him down he started eating the grass....which is a good sign!

Tommy weights somewhere around 40 lbs. I am hoping to get him on the scale in the next few days. He is incredibly tame, and doesn't mind having his head petted. Hopefully with a little more socialization he will come to know Claire and I better. I have heard from other Tort owners, including Tommy's old family, that they learn their names rather quickly and will come when called.

Here are some photos. Enjoy! There will be many more photos in the future as this new addition in to the family gets settled in.

My handy work. A special thanks to Home Depot for prefabricated fences (although I did have to build one section by hand!)

I can't even take credit for this. I had it built by a friend, but I did do the trim work, all painting and added the flaps on the door!
TOMMY!
Spying at me through the fence slats. Umm....Tommy....there's something stuck in your teeth.