# Coconut oil on carapace?



## Grapes (Jan 24, 2016)

I watched a video about pyramiding on YouTube and the guy said you can use coconut oil to resist the drying caused by reptile heat bulbs. He suggested to rub a light coat of oil on the carapace and it will keep the carapace from drying out. I'm curious if anyone's done it before for their torts? I'm also curious what kind of results I'd get using the oil and my closed humid chamber.


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## Alaskamike (Jan 24, 2016)

Under the debatable section is a long detailed thread discussing this. EVCO ( extra virgin coconut oil ) has much promise a those who are using it are showing good results. 

See if you can find that thread. 

I use it & recommend it


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## Grapes (Jan 24, 2016)

Ok thanks a lot


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## MPRC (Jan 24, 2016)

I use it about every other week and I mostly just put it on the new growth lines.


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## Pearly (Jan 24, 2016)

I use it! Just because it gives me another excuse to handle the babies, hold them close, rub them down. I do it every couple weeks, gently massage it all over them, including head, neck, shoulders and limbs. Oh! And tail too of course! i want them to be used to human touch and being handled. Plus they look gorgeous after their full body massage


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## Grapes (Jan 24, 2016)

So Pearly have you seen some good results with the coco oil? Have you gotten smooth growth and firm shells?


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## Pearly (Jan 25, 2016)

Grapes said:


> So Pearly have you seen some good results with the coco oil? Have you gotten smooth growth and firm shells?


Haha! Mine are still babies! But yes! I think their growth is smooth enough and shells hard as rocks. When they first arrived the smaller ones plastron had quite a bit of give and it was freacking me out. I really don't think that hardness of the shell and smooth growth has to do with EVCO massage that I do every couple of weeks. I think (at least in my house this needs to be attributed to a very good diet, excercise, and according to many keepers, also warm/humid environment. I like the coconut oil massage for it's interactive properties. The babies are don't freak out when being handled and I'd say even possibly enjoy it.


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## Pearly (Jan 25, 2016)

Pearly said:


> Haha! Mine are still babies! But yes! I think their growth is smooth enough and shells hard as rocks. When they first arrived the smaller ones plastron had quite a bit of give and it was freacking me out. I really don't think that hardness of the shell and smooth growth has to do with EVCO massage that I do every couple of weeks. I think (at least in my house this needs to be attributed to a very good diet, excercise, and according to many keepers, also warm/humid environment. I like the coconut oil massage for it's interactive properties. The babies are don't freak out when being handled and I'd say even possibly enjoy it.


And let's not forget the looks!!!!


this is Tucker


this is Shellie

here you can see Tucker's growth lines better

and Shellie's I don't know if they are considered "smooth" but to me they look healthy, happy, active, eating, drinking, pee and poop machines. Couldn't ask for better torts


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## Grapes (Jan 25, 2016)

They look great Pearly I have my Sulcata in a closed chamber with 80-90 humidity so I'm not worried too much just heard about EVCO and was curious what kind of results people got with it.


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## Pearly (Jan 25, 2016)

Grapes said:


> They look great Pearly I have my Sulcata in a closed chamber with 80-90 humidity so I'm not worried too much just heard about EVCO and was curious what kind of results people got with it.


Thank you! Yes! I'm little partial to them... Just a little. There was a discussion some place on EVCO possibly interfering with UVB, I'm not really worried about that for my babies (they are forest species) but you may want to browse through the debatable topics to see what opinions different experts share on there


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## ladyengineer (Jan 28, 2016)

Grapes said:


> I watched a video about pyramiding on YouTube and the guy said you can use coconut oil to resist the drying caused by reptile heat bulbs. He suggested to rub a light coat of oil on the carapace and it will keep the carapace from drying out. I'm curious if anyone's done it before for their torts? I'm also curious what kind of results I'd get using the oil and my closed humid chamber.



I recently posted a thread about changing from a dryer environment to a more humid one, and I also started using coconut oil on the shell, and I'v some interesting pics on this thread on the change in the growth pattern I've seen...
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread...o-treat-pyramiding-in-a-tunisian-tort.135621/


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## Carol S (Jan 28, 2016)

Beautiful torts!


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