# Individuals prone to overgrown beaks?



## cdmay (Mar 5, 2013)

I have a young adult male cherry-head red footed tortoise that I have kept since his importation in 2007. He has grown from 14.0 cm to almost 23.0 cm during this time and has been healthy and free of any problems, except one.
For some reason this individual has developed an overgrown beak on several occasions while other members of my group of adults never have. If provided with free access to cuttle bone he keeps his beak worn down although he often appears to break it off close to were it should naturally be. During the past couple of years I haven't provided any cuttle bone and once again this single individual has regrown a fairly long extension to the horny covering of his upper jaw (maxilla).
The diet of this tortoise as well as all of my others is varied, not overly 'soft' and is well balanced. Again, none of my other adults has ever even begun to show any signs of unnatural growth in their upper beak.
Could it be that some individuals are somehow prone to this condition? Has anyone else had experience where only one member of a group develops this?


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## Tom (Mar 5, 2013)

I have not ever encountered any sort of beak problems in any of mine. I wonder if there could be some healed over damage from some previous injury. Kind of like nail bed damage on a horse or a bird. I've seen that make nails or hooves do strange things, including overgrowth. The injury might have healed over, but somehow changed the function or structure of the beak's "growth bed".


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## cdmay (Mar 6, 2013)

Tom said:


> I have not ever encountered any sort of beak problems in any of mine. I wonder if there could be some healed over damage from some previous injury. Kind of like nail bed damage on a horse or a bird. I've seen that make nails or hooves do strange things, including overgrowth. The injury might have healed over, but somehow changed the function or structure of the beak's "growth bed".



That may be sound reasoning Tom. His beak was perfectly fine until a few years ago when it started to grow excessively. Since the original incident it has never really looked 'normal'. I wonder if he messed it up somehow...maybe by fighting with the other males? 
In any case it is not a serious problem and is more cosmetic than anything else.


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## Watsonpartyof4 (Mar 6, 2013)

cdmay said:


> I have a young adult male cherry-head red footed tortoise that I have kept since his importation in 2007. He has grown from 14.0 cm to almost 23.0 cm during this time and has been healthy and free of any problems, except one.
> For some reason this individual has developed an overgrown beak on several occasions while other members of my group of adults never have. If provided with free access to cuttle bone he keeps his beak worn down although he often appears to break it off close to were it should naturally be. During the past couple of years I haven't provided any cuttle bone and once again this single individual has regrown a fairly long extension to the horny covering of his upper jaw (maxilla).
> The diet of this tortoise as well as all of my others is varied, not overly 'soft' and is well balanced. Again, none of my other adults has ever even begun to show any signs of unnatural growth in their upper beak.
> Could it be that some individuals are somehow prone to this condition? Has anyone else had experience where only one member of a group develops this?



I have a Brazilian male Redfoot and like yours ... His beak grows really fast, I provide cuttlebones and he chews on them, but he still just gets over grown. He broke it off and it started to split ... Took him to a vet who said he was a reptile vet and used dog clippers to trim his beak and caused a crack on the otherside ... To make a long story short I found a real tort vet and they dremeled his beak. His cracks have healed thankfully. But I have found I have to take him in and let them dremmel his beak twice a year. I asked the vet about it and he said he must be getting a good diet! Some just grow faster than others.


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## Kerryann (Mar 7, 2013)

My Russian has what I think to be a beak deformity where one part of her bottom beak overgrows not in relation to the rest of her beak. I thought at first that maybe it was my care but the Marginated doesn't have the same issue and The Russian's upper beak is always nice and trim. I have come to believe it's a deformity. It makes her look like she is pouting off to one side but she eats fine. I file it to keep it in check because I worry it will cause eating issues if let go.


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## allegraf (Mar 8, 2013)

I finally got an opportunity to look over all my adults, no overgrown beaks. I took a hard look at the three that when I got them they had wonky beaks. Cuttle bones and feeding on tiles has successfully worn down their beaks and kept them short.Either way, the buck tooth won't take away from Pindo's good looks.


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## Redstrike (Mar 28, 2013)

I know there's a good amount of imported tortoises from farms and some are still wild caught, but I often think of the genetic bottleneck we have in our captive stocks and how that may result in some very interesting traits in some individuals. This is not a blanket explanation by any means and I am making a lot of assumptions here, but it's something I've often pondered.

I like Tom's idea, I'm a firm believer in the application of Occam's razor.


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