Is he growing too slow?

[Scooter]

I got Thor on March 2, of this year. Based on what everyone said here I was guessing he was about 3 months old, so that would make him about 7 months old now. When I got Thor the center portion of his plastron was soft. It has slowly been hardening up but is not completely hard yet. Because of the soft plastron I figuring he would grow a little slower since his body was having to work to harden the plastron. Now I am worried he is not growing at all. In the last month he has gained 4 grams but has not grown any since I got him. His enclosure is a very large rubbermaid bin with rocks on the bottom for drainage and top soil, mulch and moss. In the enclosure I have planted hibiscus, purslane, aloe, and Christmas cactus. I put in seeds, a variety of greens and squashes, so he can eat them as they sprout up. He also gets daily spring mix with a variety of other veggies depending on what we have in the frig. He also get Mazuri once to twice a week and gets calcium powder every other day and has a cuttle bone (that he never uses). He has a plant saucer with water in his enclosure and I also soak him daily. I know its best to grow them slow, I am just worried this is too slow. He is acting fine, roams all over, fecals looks good, they are well formed and not to hard or soft. He barely ever has urates and he has a huge appetite.

This picture was taken on March 8, 2010

This one was taken on June 9, 2010

This is the most recent on July 6, 2010

I have been looking everyone else's babies and they seem to be growing much faster. Should I be concerned or is this nothing?
Thanks

 

[Scooter]

No comments/advise?

 

[Tom]

Charlotte, I was going to do a post on this same thing as I've been thinking a lot about it lately. We have a new member with some pretty small, but healthy looking 1 year olds, my Daisy is almost 3 years old and just under 6". I got her at 3 months old in Jan. of 2008, so she'll be three in Sept.

My 12 year old adult males are only 42 and 48 pounds. They were tiny hatchlings when I got them in July of 1998. I fed them a little light to try to grow them slow and smooth, but they still ate a ton. I regularly see and hear about 8 or 9 year old 100 pounders.

I've noticed exactly what you are talking about with a lot of them. I see people regularly with 10 month old sulcatas bigger than Daisy. Then, on the other hand, I see ones like yours and mine. It seems to be one extreme or the other. All of them seem to be getting similar care, diet and enclosures. Minor differences, but pretty close. I've seen the same thing with lots of animals. Leopard torts, water monitors, Iguanas. My 7 month old Blackthroat monitors are as big as some adults I've seen that were several years old.

Here are some possibilities:
1. Genetic geographical differences. Some populations within the huge range of a species are just smaller.
2. Different amount or types of food given. When someone says, "a lot" or "a little" how much is that? If some one says, "2 cups of spring mix", is that stuffed in there until its packed in and compressed, lightly dropped in there, or somewhere in between? I thought I was giving mine a pretty large amount of food, but not in comparison to what some people do.
3. Protein. Most torts don't get much. Mr Richard Fife thinks we may have gone too far in reducing protein intake, because we all mistakenly thought it caused or contributed to pyramiding. If someone is feeding Mazuri or some other prepared food, they are getting a lot more protein than someone who feeds only grass and weeds. This MIGHT account for some of the difference. Daisy has started growing faster since I started feeding her Mazuri.
4. Hydration. I've just started noticing lately that a lot of the fast growers have really smooth shells. My hatchlings appear, at 2 months old, to be among the fast growing group. I don't think a tort could be more hydrated than those babies. I'm expecting their feet to web over any day now. Ha Ha. We'll see in another year or two how that turns out. Danny did a thread a while back stating that chronic dehydration had a lot to do with pyramiding and that humidity helps to prevent dehydration. So, the humidity doesn't stop the pyramiding, but the tortoise being hydrated does. What is your soaking, spraying, humidity routine? What was Thor's routine BEFORE you got him? Did the previous owner keep in in a dry substrated beef-jerky maker, the way i USED to keep mine? That is for sure how Daisy was raised for the first three months. I'm lecturing the guy regularly about that, BTW. He watching me and learning, hopefully. That reminds me, I gotta send him new pics of my babies.

I'm sure there are more, but these seem the most likely to me. Could be a combination of multiple factors.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Bob is 11 years old and just hit 80 pounds. He has never been de wormed or been to the Vet except to be micro-chipped. He has full graze and I feed him grape vines and produce daily. Every evening he gets a treat usually softened squash but that's getting harder now that it's out of season. I have smaller growing tortoises and I give them several hands full of Spring Mix and other veggies twice a day. I never thought about feeding less for slow growth. I feed basically as much as they will eat twice a day and in the evening I give them a small plate of softened squash or grated zucchini. If those were MY tortoises I would think they are not growing good enough or being fed enough. But that's *ME*. I would however have both of those babies checked for parasites...BTW...Bob gets NO humidity

 

[elvis]

Maggie, where do they insert the micro chip on a tort?

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Bob's is in his neck, just right where his skull ends.

 

[Tom]

After thinking about this some more, it occurred to me that my own tortoises are on their way to disproving # 1, 2 and 3 and proving number 4.

They are genetically related so if my new babies grow fast, and get big, my current adults small size won't be able to be explained by small genes. It will take 8-10 years at least to figure this one out, but I'll have a pretty good idea after 2 or 3.

I'm feeding the new hatchlings the same stuff in the same quantities that I fed my hatchlings in '98. If the new ones grow faster, we can eliminate differences in food types and quantities.

Ditto for #3. Same foods and protein content as my '98 hatchlings. So if these new hatchlings grow faster, it won't be because of different protein levels.

That leaves number 4. This is the only thing I'm doing differently. My current adults were all dry all the time when they were hatchlings, while their direct genetic offspring are getting all wet all the time. Same diet. Same quantities. Same protein levels. Also on the same ranch and in the same climate. So if my current little ones get bigger, faster we can conclude its because they were much better hydrated.

We are, of course, only talking about one guy's experience with a handful of torts, but it seems pretty sensible to me.

To address Maggies' comment about Bob having no humidity: Everyone I've talked to about this stuff agrees that it pertains to hatchlings and small ones. Once they are 6-8" the humidity and hydration factor seems to not matter any more. This corresponds to the time in the wild when they would be spending more and more time above ground and out in the open. It also explains why we used to get 6" or bigger wild caught ones that didn't start pyramiding as soon as they were put in to the same pen with captive raised, already pyramided ones.

 

[Livingstone]

Im going to chime in here...

What type of light are you susing for the day? What type of light are you using for the night?

Growth has to do with the metabolic rate of the tortoise and is directly connected to its humidity and temperature.

A tortoise that is given the correct temperature gradient and allowed to fully warm up then retreat to its hide to cool down (read thermoregulation), that is getting the correct diet and quantity of food is going to grow well and fast.

As the tortoise eats, its body shifts energy into digesting the food, If the tortoise does not get warm enough it may not digest the food as well as it should. If the temperature is at the correct level the tortoise will absorb the nutritous stuff from the food and grow in a healthy manner.

It is at this point the humidity becomes important, with proper humidity comes smooth growth (read outward and flat growth). We have all seem pictures of pyramiding, thats when the tortoise is able to metabolize food but instead of growing outward the shell grows upward. In essence creating a smaller tortoise... If you could push the pyramides down and flat you would have a big smooth tortoise.

In your last image, it looks as though there is step down between the lighter colored hatchling shields and the darker colored new growth. Based on that I would say you need to work on the overall humidity (75-80%) in order to get the smooth growth and ultimately larger tortoise you are looking for.

***On a side note this is not to start an arguement about mbd and pyramiding. Opinions vary about that, mine is that they are unique only in that you can have pyramiding with the correct diet and no humidity.

 

[Tom]

Growth has to do with the metabolic rate of the tortoise and is directly connected to its humidity and temperature.

I disagree. If well fed and warm they will still grow with no humidity. That's how its been done for the last 30 years. Only very recently are we learning about and introducing humidity.

---

A tortoise that is given the correct temperature gradient and allowed to fully warm up then retreat to its hide to cool down (read thermoregulation), that is getting the correct diet and quantity of food is going to grow well and fast.

Again this is not true. This is exactly what the OP is about. Tortoises that are getting the right diet, conditions and temperature gradient, but STILL failing to grow at the "normal" rate. This is why its a mystery.

 

[Livingstone]

Growth has to do with the metabolic rate of the tortoise and is directly connected to its humidity and temperature.

I disagree. If well fed and warm they will still grow with no humidity. That's how its been done for the last 30 years. Only very recently are we learning about and introducing humidity.

Yes Tom, I agree, but the tortoise will grow up not round, the shields will form more of a hill. The best viual I can come up with is to take a piece of clay and form it into a pyramid, then take your hand and flatten it out. which has the the bigger footprint, the pyramid or the flattened disc left afterwards? Now apply that principle to a tortoises shell.

***We are only talking about a captive raised tortoise from hatchling indoors. Where the animal is dependent on the keeper.

 

[Tom]

It is at this point the humidity becomes important, with proper humidity comes smooth growth (read outward and flat growth). We have all seem pictures of pyramiding, thats when the tortoise is able to metabolize food but instead of growing outward the shell grows upward. In essence creating a smaller tortoise... If you could push the pyramides down and flat you would have a big smooth tortoise.

I'm not so sure about this. I don't think the pyramids grow up, I think the valleys between the scutes fail to stay up with the rest of the scute. If you look at a smooth one in profile, it looks like they are higher domed than a pyramided one. Look at a pyramided one in profile and instead of envisioning smashing down the pyramids, instead envision bringing the valleys UP to the same level as the top of the pyramids.

 

[Livingstone]

It is at this point the humidity becomes important, with proper humidity comes smooth growth (read outward and flat growth). We have all seem pictures of pyramiding, thats when the tortoise is able to metabolize food but instead of growing outward the shell grows upward. In essence creating a smaller tortoise... If you could push the pyramides down and flat you would have a big smooth tortoise.

I'm not so sure about this. I don't think the pyramids grow up, I think the valleys between the scutes fail to stay up with the rest of the scute. If you look at a smooth one in profile, it looks like they are higher domed than a pyramided one. Look at a pyramided one in profile and instead of envisioning smashing down the pyramids, instead envision bringing the valleys UP to the same level as the top of the pyramids.

Yes, we are saying the same thing, my wording was unclear. A pyramided tortoise a each stage of growth creates another level at each shield rather than the whole shell expanding. Its the dehydration that prevents the shell from being flexible to grow outwards, so instead it grows upwards.

 

[Tom]

In your last image, it looks as though there is step down between the lighter colored hatchling shields and the darker colored new growth. Based on that I would say you need to work on the overall humidity (75-80%) in order to get the smooth growth and ultimately larger tortoise you are looking for.

Which pic are you addressing here? Really it could be either mine or Scooter's. If its Daisy, she's been in higher humidity, 85-100%, for the last two and a half years. She's also been kept on wet substrate, in a covered tub, and gotten daily soaks with lots of shell spraying throughout the day. She serves as an example that pyramiding is VERY difficult to stop once that pattern of growth is started. That's why I hammer people on it when I see little young ones that are just starting to pyramid.

 

[Livingstone]

The one taken july 6th 2010.

---

I will be back, need to take livingstone for a walk.

 

[Yvonne G]

And sometimes its just a matter of individuality. I've raised brothers of the same species, with the same care and habitat, and they've grown at different rates. Just like some people are bigger than others, same goes for tortoises. Some just grow faster and bigger.

 

[Scooter]

Scoot already had the small "valley" between his scutes when I got him. He was kept on dry pellets with no humidity. Health wise he is doing great except the not growing. As I have not worked with hatchlings before I didn't know if I should see growth within 4 months. He is gaining weight and his shell is hardening he is just not getting bigger. I also mist him and try to keep the humidity up.

 

[Tom]

According to Danny's post, the chronic dehydration at an early age does permanent and irreparable damage to some of their internal organs. This could be what's going on in your case. Here's Danny's thread. Go all the way down to post #29 for what we've been discussing here. The rest of the thread is pretty interesting to me too. http://tortoiseforum.org/thread-16006-page-2.html

Yvonne is also right. Scooter and Bert were the same size as hatchlings. With the exact same care and diet in the exact same enclosure, Scooter has always been bigger and faster growing and still is.