# Dry/"wrong" start breeder success rate?



## Ramsey (Aug 19, 2017)

I've been wondering this since I got into the hobby.

I read so many unfortunate stories about new keepers getting hatchlings from breeders/vendors who don't start them off humid. Most of these stories result in the tortoise not surviving. This was my first experience too, sadly.

However some of these torts certainly must survive, right? Or do they all fail?

I wonder what the success rate is. I doubt this is a number we will ever really know, but I would love to hear some thoughts.


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## Tom (Aug 19, 2017)

We can only speculate. Certainly some of them do survive, but how many depends on many factors. I'd guess that the survival rate for dry started babies can be anywhere from 10%-90%. I think in most dry situations its probably around 50%, based on what I've seen. This adds to the problem because for every dead one, seller X can point to one that is alive and well. They believe that the dead one is due to "operator error". In some cases, a death can be due to a new keeper doing the wrong things, but in most of the cases we see here on TFO, people are doing everything right, but they can't overcome the damage that was done in the weeks or months before they acquired their baby.

One big problem is that when you are producing 100 babies per year, per female, you really have no way to track your survival rate over the long term. Over 99% of the time, I hear nothing about the babies that I sell. Sometimes I sell them to forum members and get updates for a while, but people come and go from here. I will often text or email to ask sometimes, and so far its been all good news.

Another problem is that most dry started babies will survive for months before they die. Even if the breeder or seller does hear about a death, they don't think it has anything to do with them since all the babies appeared to be fine and normal while in their care.


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## Yvonne G (Aug 19, 2017)

Here's a good example of the dry way of keeping a tortoise:




The folks who bought this tortoise most likely didn't read up on how to care for it and just put it in a dry enclosure with a hot light. As you can see, the tortoise has "survived" to adulthood, but you can't really say he's a healthy tortoise. And who knows if he'll live as long as his species normally lives.


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## Ramsey (Aug 19, 2017)

Tom said:


> We can only speculate. Certainly some of them do survive, but how many depends on many factors. I'd guess that the survival rate for dry started babies can be anywhere from 10%-90%. I think in most dry situations its probably around 50%, based on what I've seen. This adds to the problem because for every dead one, seller X can point to one that is alive and well. They believe that the dead one is due to "operator error". In some cases, a death can be due to a new keeper doing the wrong things, but in most of the cases we see here on TFO, people are doing everything right, but they can't overcome the damage that was done in the weeks or months before they acquired their baby.
> 
> One big problem is that when you are producing 100 babies per year, per female, you really have no way to track your survival rate over the long term. Over 99% of the time, I hear nothing about the babies that I sell. Sometimes I sell them to forum members and get updates for a while, but people come and go from here. I will often text or email to ask sometimes, and so far its been all good news.
> 
> Another problem is that most dry started babies will survive for months before they die. Even if the breeder or seller does hear about a death, they don't think it has anything to do with them since all the babies appeared to be fine and normal while in their care.



Sounds about like what I was thinking. The vendor I got my first/dry baby from kept telling me 25-50% of hatchlings just"die unexpectedly for no apparent reason".

Knowing what I know now, that's obviously garbage. Although I do personally believe a very small number of all species fail to thrive. But that's just Darwinism and not humid related.


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## Ramsey (Aug 19, 2017)

Yvonne G said:


> Here's a good example of the dry way of keeping a tortoise:
> 
> View attachment 215981
> 
> ...


This is sad. I saw one way worse looking than this at a reptile show. I can only hope the poor creature isn't in pain.


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## drew54 (Oct 24, 2018)

@Tom have you done any experiments with weaning a dry started hatchling into a humid environment? If so, how did it go and what were the effects? Do you think that there are some negative effects to the dry started hatchling with transitioning a hatchling from a dry environment straight to a humid one? For instance, Wouldn't the air pressure be heavier in the humid chamber and be harder for the dry started hatchling to breathe the humid air? Just curious. My mind has been wondering on this for a few days as I continue to read posts of baby's dying in this fashion.


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## TammyJ (Oct 24, 2018)

I bet Tom is going to say that the humidity should be the correct level for the species, as long as the temperature is also correct and then anything after that is not the fault of the new owner. If it's cold and humid, that's going to be bad and lead to sickness. 
Star pupil for the day.


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## drew54 (Oct 24, 2018)

TammyJ said:


> I bet Tom is going to say that the humidity should be the correct level for the species, as long as the temperature is also correct and then anything after that is not the fault of the new owner. If it's cold and humid, that's going to be bad and lead to sickness.
> Star pupil for the day.



I typed out a long reply, but I realized that most babies in general are relatively adaptable to most environmental changes and most often do well with the change assuming tat health is good and proper care is given. I guess


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## drew54 (Oct 24, 2018)

drew54 said:


> I typed out a long reply, but I realized that most babies in general are relatively adaptable to most environmental changes and most often do well with the change assuming tat health is good and proper care is given. I guess



With any change its hard on a baby at first, but I would also suspect there are negatives that would potentially affect any transition though.


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