# Look how much he's grown! (DUW)



## Floof (Aug 10, 2012)

The other day, I realized it had been a full 7 months since I last measured and weighed my dear little Leopard tort. Yup, I'm bad about that, I know... Anyway, he weighed in at 315 grams and 4.5" SCL! This time last year, he was only 45 grams!!! He's still TINY for supposedly being 3 years old, but he's starting to catch up...

Eeeee! My little baby is growing up! <3

SO today I finally got him out for some pics!











His pseudo outdoor grazing area. I have no real yard and I live in a crappy neighborhood (have already had to deal with a nasty case of vandalism and siphoned gas; don't need to add tortoise theft to the list!), so he's indoors-only until I move. Poor baby! He does get supervised time outside, though... Usually on this little grazing tray, so I don't have to worry about dog poop (or the case of the Disappearing Tortoise).





However, a patient tortoise, he is not. Once he gets bored of the graze...





"Bye, Ma! I'm gonna go visit the little doggies next door..."





YES, my hands are tiny, LOL!













Here's a picture from about a year ago.





Any guesses what sex he'll turn out to be?





The End! Thanks for peeking!


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## ALDABRAMAN (Aug 10, 2012)

Looks fantastic!


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## mctlong (Aug 10, 2012)

Oooh, very pretty.


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## wellington (Aug 10, 2012)

He looks great.


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## Floof (Aug 10, 2012)

Thank you!


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## Tortoise Princess (Jan 19, 2013)

Floof said:


> The other day, I realized it had been a full 7 months since I last measured and weighed my dear little Leopard tort. Yup, I'm bad about that, I know... Anyway, he weighed in at 315 grams and 4.5" SCL! This time last year, he was only 45 grams!!! He's still TINY for supposedly being 3 years old, but he's starting to catch up...
> 
> Eeeee! My little baby is growing up! <3
> 
> ...



he/she has the cutest "B" and "C" pattern on the shell! cool


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## jesst (Jan 19, 2013)

Looks amazing and so smooth!!


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## l0velesly (Jan 19, 2013)

He's quite the beauty... love his shell pattern~


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## kyle82tx (Jan 19, 2013)

very cool pattern


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## DesertGrandma (Jan 19, 2013)

Very nice looking shell. Good job!!


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## DrewsLife727 (Jan 19, 2013)

he looks amazing!


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## morloch (Jan 20, 2013)

Beautiful shell!


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## Floof (Jan 20, 2013)

Thanks!! I'm very proud of how he's turning out.

I guess this thread is as good a time/place as any for another update!

Today he weighed in at 437 grams, and a hair over 5" SCL. These pics were taken over a span of a couple weeks.

















I finally moved back in November! Into a house with a FENCED yard--hooray! Better yet, a house with a yard in Southern California.. Which means even in the dead of winter, many days are 70 and sunny. Before I could start work on his outdoor enclosure, I'd let him have run of the northern chunk of yard.. Supervised, of course. It didn't take him long to decide the ugly mound of dirt along the back fence is his favorite place to explore. Can you spot the tortoise?





There he is!









So, I finally started construction on his outdoor pen earlier this week. I wanted very much to take it all the way up the dirt mound, since he's so fond of mountain climbing, but it didn't work out that way. Maybe down the road, but for now he has to live with this mostly flat chunk. I still need to take an actual tape measure to it, but it's somewhere in the ballpark of 4' wide and 12' or so long. It's not close to done, but it has the basic amenities--walls, water, a hide. It's a start!


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## MechanicMatt (Jan 20, 2013)

Looks like a great start to his outdoor enclosure! Wish we lived somewhere warm during the winter!


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## Blakem (Jan 20, 2013)

Great looking face!


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## Yellow Turtle (Jan 20, 2013)

Congratulations on moving to a nice place. And the leopard is really marvelous. 

He is a pardalis pardalis, right?


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## Elliriyanna (Jan 20, 2013)

Lol now you have me researching this species ... amazingly lovely and clearly well cared for


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## Floof (Jan 20, 2013)

Yellow Turtle said:


> Congratulations on moving to a nice place. And the leopard is really marvelous.
> 
> He is a pardalis pardalis, right?



AFAIK, he's pardalis babcocki. All I know for sure about his history is that he was originally purchased at a pet store in Utah. Haven't had any reason to think he has any p.pardalis blood, but, then, stranger things have happened. 




Elliriyanna said:


> Lol now you have me researching this species ... amazingly lovely and clearly well cared for



Thank you! The Leopards are great torts. Easily my favorite species so far! He just has such a great little personality. I actually feel really bad that I still haven't decided on a name for him yet..


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## sibi (Jan 20, 2013)

Great looking tort. I'm glad you have a place for your baby. Get a name for him already =P


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## Yellow Turtle (Jan 21, 2013)

His round figure like babcocki, but he's got two dots on his scutes. Just wonder if he's got some mixed blood.


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## Floof (Jan 21, 2013)

Yellow--Maybe! It's interesting to think about... 

Sibi--Haha, working on that! Never have been good with names. I changed my boa's name 4 times over the course of a year before settling on the right one..


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## samsmom (Jan 21, 2013)

He's gorgeous and lucky to have someone who cares so much for him!


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## Melly-n-shorty (Jan 21, 2013)

what a little stunner, I love the markings!


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## Mich (Jan 22, 2013)

I was thinking no way he's 3yrs old, he looked way too small but the pic of him in your hand gives a much better scale!  Think he looked smaller at first because he's so nice and smooth! Mine is the same age, she is a little bigger but her shell unfortunatly is quite bumpy as she was miskept by her prev owner (I just got her last April). GOOD JOB!!!!


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## Floof (Jan 23, 2013)

Thank you, Mich!

I'm pretty confident that he IS small for his age. He was hardly bigger than a hatchling when I got him, and he was already about 2 years old at that point! This was taken the day he came.






The previous owner had raised him in the same enclosure as 3 Sulcatas, a Greek tortoise (also really small for 2 years old), a Russian tortoise, and a wood turtle. No UVB, in a 3' converted bookcase on the floor of his living room with one little basking light and a CHE, both of which he would only turn on when he thought about it. Urgh. I actually pet sat the lot for a couple months (that's how I got the leopard, as payment). Luckily he let me fix some of the husbandry problems as a condition of pet sitting.


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## Mich (Jan 24, 2013)

Ouch .. ya in that pic he looks more like a yearling. Here's a pic of my leopard last March when I got her .. I was told she was 3 so I gues she would be nearly 4 now (assuming the person I got her off of knew anything real about her at all, he was only re-homing her after the prev owner surrendered her). Good size compare to yours, similar pose lol






He was bragging that her shell is perfect? I was like nooo .. actually she has quite a bit of pyramiding. Then he said "well she is like 95% perfect" *eye roll* But I think judging by her size I guess she would have been about 3yrs old. Yours has REALLY come along  Amazing what diet, UV and proper leg room can do! Grow little guy grow


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## Floof (Jan 24, 2013)

She's beautiful, even with her pyramiding. Funny what other peoples' opinions of "perfect" are. LOL.

Yes, it really is incredible what a little TLC will do. The third to last pic in the first post was from a couple months after getting him... You can already see in that pic how proper temps, FOOD (I imagine he didn't get much with the two 6-8" Sulcatas hanging around), and some UVB had made a difference. His eyes weren't puffy anymore, and he was actually growing!

I think the significance of that was lost on the previous owner, though, because he still didn't understand why I kept telling him to not put the tiny 2" greek tortoise back in with the two 6-8" Sulcatas.


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## cemmons12 (Jan 24, 2013)

Good looking Leo!


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## Eloise's mommy (Jan 25, 2013)

He is adorable!! I can't decide if I like sulcatas or leaopards better they are both such pretty breeds!!


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