Healthy hatchlings?

[fritzgerald]

Randomly found a new pet store in town and they had these little leopard hatchlings. Do they look healthy to you guys? Worth the $250 asking price?

Their shells look a little dehydrated to me but they're really active and roaming around the enclosure.

They didn't know the exact age but told me they were about 2 months old.

There was two in the enclosure. All the pics are of the same one except the last one, which was the second baby.

Also a bonus pic of one little lone Sully.

 

[Tom]

They are already pyramiding which means they've been housed and cared for incorrectly. Too dry and wrong bulbs. It is therefore very likely that they were not started correctly, and not soaked daily either.

What then typically happens in these cases is that the babies look and seem fine. They eat and roam around, but they don't grow past about 50 grams. They stall at around 50 for weeks or months, and then go downhill and die. Ask the pet store to weigh these babies for you. If they are 65 grams or more, they are past that stage, and you could buy them with a reasonable expectation of survival. If their internal organs were not damaged by dehydration and they are well over 50 grams, then the cosmetic damage is minimal, and you can get them into the right conditions and fix it. If they are right around 50 grams, or less, they are not likely to survive past a few months.

You can't tell much by looking at the outside of the baby. You need to know the history and what has been done, or not done, and how they were started after hatching and at the breeder's place. Almost everyone selling them does it wrong. Buy from a breeder that starts them correctly in a brooder box after hatching, soaks daily, and keeps them warm and humid in a closed chamber. The going rate for a healthy baby like this is around $150. We have several people breeding them here on the forum. I have personally seen the ones offered by Will from @Kapidolo Farms and they look great. There are other people here doing it right too.

 

[Markw84]

I'll disagree with @Tom here and say they don't look like they are pyramiding and in fact the growth they had initially looks good. However, I do not see an active growth line now - so doesn't look like their current care is stimulating much growth. The smaller one looks quite young and has had little growth so far. Also, they appear to be housed on a mix of bark and sand. I would be concerned about that as well. As Tom mentions, the $250 is a bit much for baby leopards.

@NorCal tortoise guy had baby leopards available a few months ago and some ready to hatch. So pretty sure he would have some now. He starts and raises them properly and his are always in great health. He normally gets about $125 for them. He also normally has some with S African genes - so those can get quite a bit larger if you're interested in that. So you would have a choice with him as well.

 

[fritzgerald]

Thanks guys. You're dead on with the substrate, sand and soil with a little bit of bark sprinkled over the top. I don't know how long they've been housed at this place but based on everything I've seen here, it definitely needs improvement. In the first picture, the tortoise was under the heat lamp, but notice you don't see any light? I didn't look under the dome but it's definitely too close to be a CHE. The UVB was on but angled in the enclosure so it's facing away from the warm side. Sully did have a heat lamp but it was bone dry inside. Leopards at least had moist substrate.

Although I want a baby now because, well, baby tortoise... I'm still setting up my enclosure and in no rush. I was more so asking to get an idea of if I should revisit this seller once I'm ready in a couple weeks or just stick with the plan of finding a breeder on here and waiting.

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

Randomly found a new pet store in town and they had these little leopard hatchlings. Do they look healthy to you guys? Worth the $250 asking price?

Their shells look a little dehydrated to me but they're really active and roaming around the enclosure.

They didn't know the exact age but told me they were about 2 months old.

There was two in the enclosure. All the pics are of the same one except the last one, which was the second baby.

Also a bonus pic of one little lone Sully.

Personally I wouldn’t buy one. There are breeders here on the forum were you can buy one and know how they were cared for after they hatched.

 

[fritzgerald]

Personally I wouldn’t buy one. There are breeders here on the forum were you can buy one and know how they were cared for after they hatched.

Yeah, I feel like if I need to question it, I probably shouldn't. That and they couldn't tell me anything about them before they got them, not even the age. We have an expo here this weekend so I'll see what's there, and how they look. Drove today to get the substrate and working tonight and tomorrow to get the enclosure buttoned up and running by tomorrow afternoon. Wife says I need to go back to work before I turn the kids room into a tortoise room.

@NorCal tortoise guy do you know when you anticipate to have hatchlings available?

 

[NorCal tortoise guy]

Yeah, I feel like if I need to question it, I probably shouldn't. That and they couldn't tell me anything about them before they got them, not even the age. We have an expo here this weekend so I'll see what's there, and how they look. Drove today to get the substrate and working tonight and tomorrow to get the enclosure buttoned up and running by tomorrow afternoon. Wife says I need to go back to work before I turn the kids room into a tortoise room.

@NorCal tortoise guy do you know when you anticipate to have hatchlings available?

I have 12 or so babies right now and lots of eggs in the incubator yet to hatch. The babies I have now are almost a month old so they will be ready for new homes very soon

 

[Tom]

Yeah, I feel like if I need to question it, I probably shouldn't. That and they couldn't tell me anything about them before they got them, not even the age. We have an expo here this weekend so I'll see what's there, and how they look. Drove today to get the substrate and working tonight and tomorrow to get the enclosure buttoned up and running by tomorrow afternoon. Wife says I need to go back to work before I turn the kids room into a tortoise room.

@NorCal tortoise guy do you know when you anticipate to have hatchlings available?

Read these two threads so you know what to look for and what to ask of any seller:

"Hatchling Failure Syndrome"

I've heard this term for many years and I don't like it. Its a way to excuse our ignorance and failure. I will agree that an occasional hatchling is born that is just not going to make it no matter what anybody does, but MOST of them, if they make it full term and hatch, SHOULD survive and...

tortoiseforum.org

How To Incubate Eggs And Start Hatchlings

I put my eggs in a plastic shoe box with a lid on it and put the shoe box in the incubator. You can drill a couple of very small holes around the top of the container, but not on the lid. I use vermiculite as an incubation media. I mix it in a 1 : 1 ratio with water by weight for Sulcatas and...

tortoiseforum.org

Almost no one does it the way I've outlined in the second thread, and a large percentage of leopard and sulcata babies do not survive more than a few weeks or months because of it. You will not have this problem if you buy from @NorCal tortoise guy . He is a friend of mine, a really good dude, and he starts his babies optimally.

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Whilst the babies don’t look too bad here, there’s definitely some very questionable housing choices, which does lead one to presume they’ve not had the best start, as Tom has touched on, they can look bright and alert today, but could well be doomed to never thrive

Either way just based on their current standard of care, I wouldn’t want to contribute to the funding of their practices, that’s just me

 

[fritzgerald]

Whilst the babies don’t look too bad here, there’s definitely some very questionable housing choices, which does lead one to presume they’ve not had the best start, as Tom has touched on, they can look bright and alert today, but could well be doomed to never thrive

Either way just based on their current standard of care, I wouldn’t want to contribute to the funding of their practices, that’s just me

Yeah, the Leopards were better than the Sully but, neither were good based on what I've seen and read here. I only know of that vendor and LLLReptile that will be at the expo, and that's already a no on one of the vendors. I think I'm getting over excided and starting to rush myself, so I need to take a breath. I just reached out to @NorCal tortoise guy though and hopefully I can set something up with him.

@Tom thanks for those. I did read them previously but it doesn't hurt to read a few more times. I think I'm more worried about the internal damage that you don't see. It had been a good while since I read the incubation thread, and I didn't read it word for word previously since I have no plans to breed (only one tortoise can't make babies), but it didn't click that I should read it for questions to ask the breeder or vendor.