curling scutes?

[flimsybox]

Okay so I feel like a bad owner. When I got Tom, his scutes were fine. Now I've had him for almost 3 months. His back scutes are curling upward. I feed him a mix of spring mix, kale, and romaine lettuce. he has had a strip uva/uvb light for 3 months. he has a heat lamp for 3 months, too, and the temps are high-95, low-70. he has a humid enclosure that ranges from 40% to 60%. he's got coconut fiber substrate in the humid enclosure and repti bark in the dry enclosure. I soak him every saturday and sometimes tuesdays for 20 minutes in extra warm water (because over the course of 20 minutes the water gets colder. i dont know how else to keep the water warm). he has cuttlebone and i also have calcium powder available. he hasn't been eating the cuttlebone, and i haven't been sprinkling the powder on his food. i have some of the trex formula left, and i can sprinkle some of those on his food for extra vitamins. i also have a brown pellet for turtles, but i'm not sure if i should use that. i just gave him timothy hay 3 days ago. I've posted a thread like this before, but I want a few more opinions since there is no one-size-fits-all answer for tort health care.

**People keep telling me to go outside and get weeds for him, but I can't! When I go outside and play in the sand or something my hand swell from chemicals. I need to feed him grocery store food**

 

[Yvonne G]

Are you talking about the flair over his legs? That's pretty normal.

 

[leigti]

To keep the water warm while soaking him you can try having two containers, when one starts getting too cold then fill up the other one with lukewarm water. it is not good to start out with water that is too hot. I would definitely sprinkle the calcium powder or else scrape some cuttlebone onto his food. Just saw Brady down the greens to make them wet and then the calcium will stick. But don't use too much. And also kind of stir it around so it's all not all sitting on top. you can try turn up greens, collard greens, mustard greens, endive, escarole, radicchio, dandelion greens, carrot tops, radish tops. The flair by the back legs is not all that uncommon. But your tortoise does need a good diet. I sprinkle TNT powder from Carolina pet supply and herbal hey from tortoise supply on top of the greens in the winter. my tortoise prefers the herbal hey soaked.