Is my hermann's tortoise too bumpy?

[anniek_vd]

Heyy everyone!

I know this has been discussed time and time again, but I'm a bit worried about my tortoise her shell. It's a bit bumpy. Before I got her she was held in not suitable conditions, very dry, the wrong food and lamps. Now years later that is of course fixed, but I am noticing bumps now none the less... Am I doing something wrong? Is this from her past? Or is she just naturally a bit bumpy? For the first two years I soaked her almost everyday, and now almost every two days. I attached some photo's of Pebble, hopefully someone can help! When I got her they said she was 1 year and upcoming april I'll have them 4 years already, maybe that helps a bit.
Thanks in advance

Kind regards,
Anniek

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Aw she’s beautiful! This probably from the previous care, there’s no undoing the pyramiding she came with, but you likely stopped it getting worse! If you can try answering these questions we can help give some pointers if any are needed and it gives us a refresh on your housing

What are your temperatures like all over? Ie basking temp(directly under the bulb), overall day temps(middle and cooler side), night temps?
What kind of basking bulb is being used specifically? Packaging photos are good if you have any
Do you use indoor uv? If so what kind?
How’s humidity?
What’s her substrate?
What kind of monitoring do you have?
What’s her diet been like with you?

A photo of the full set up would be wonderful!

 

[anniek_vd]

Aw she’s beautiful! This probably from the previous care, there’s no undoing the pyramiding she came with, but you likely stopped it getting worse! If you can try answering these questions we can help give some pointers if any are needed and it gives us a refresh on your housing

What are your temperatures like all over? Ie basking temp(directly under the bulb), overall day temps(middle and cooler side), night temps?
What kind of basking bulb is being used specifically? Packaging photos are good if you have any
Do you use indoor uv? If so what kind?
How’s humidity?
What’s her substrate?
What kind of monitoring do you have?
What’s her diet been like with you?

A photo of the full set up would be wonderful!

Heyy thank you so much for your quick respond. Im so happy that I atleast stopped it from getting any worse and I forwarded the compliment!

I would love to get some more tips on my current care, I've been doing it for a couple years now and feel like I slagged a bit because everything feels so normal now. Doing an update on everything never hurts!

I measure my temps with a lasergun and they are 25 to 30 celsius for the basking area, around 18 for the cooler side and in the middle around 20. I inserted a photo of the basking bulbs I use, depending on the temperature outside the enclosure I use 1 or 2 bulbs. Now only the one on the left is on, because temperatures are fine, if I see that it drops I turn on another bulb in the middle of the enclosure to raise the temperatures (basically a couple weeks in winter if it's freezing a bit, it's not so cold where I live). At night the temperatures drop to 18 sometimes 15. I definitely use UV and I replace it every 6 months, I also inserted a picture of the one I use.

My humidity meter broke a while ago so to be honest I don't know for sure, but the substrate is always a bit damp (once every two days I throw in a liter of warm water and mix it through). I soak almost every two days for 15 to 30 minutes.

I use a mix of reptibark and coco coir as substrate and it takes a long time to be dirty, I spot clean throughout the day and clean up all food that hasn't been eaten. I replace it every 4 to 6 months and even then it's not really dirty to be honest.

I'm not sure what you mean by monitoring?

Food is the department I think I definitely need to improve in. Pebble is so picky and I think that's partly my fault too. In the beginning I was so scared with what she could and couldn't eat, especially something from outside. I really want to start introducing way more weeds and plants.

Today though I gave her some forget me not leaves and endive (especially in winter endive is the main thing I give her, I really struggle with what else to give her sometimes). She once in a while get's the little round treats from the picture I inserted and I also give the reptilix as food sometimes (often she doesn't want anything else, I'm afraid she is rather picky...), I also have opuntia which she finally wanted to eat yesterday, she eats nettles when outside cause they are in her outside enclosure and she seems to like them, clovers, dandelions and dandelion leaves, a bit of grass sometimes but that's about it. It's mostly stuff from the grocery store like endive and the white chicory (witlof in dutch). My mom and I are working hard on our vegetable garden at the moment and we want a big part of it to be food for my tortoises, so please come with all the recommondations!

I do not hibernate either of my tortoises, because I'm frankly to scared and I don't want to breed with them anyway. I hope this is okay... I also think they are too young.

We built a big outside enclosure (it's hard to see on the photo, because we covered it for winter). It has a mixture of sand and hummus in it, which we want both my tortoises to be in a couple months a year (when temps allow it, we don't want lamps outside yet) once we build some sleeping places (I inserted a photo of what we are planning on building but then two, one for each tortoise). For now we put them in there when temps allow it and take them back inside for the night. They basically walk around for a couple minutes, eat a bit and the hide the whole day so I don't think they really like it yet. But maybe if they can get really used to it and stay in it also at night it will get better! If you have any tips regarding an outside enclosure, definitely let me know too! I have all kinds of plants in there, wooden hideouts, a big pot they love hiding in, stepping stones etc. Oh and we made sure they can't dig themselves out, the stones are buried deep and on the bottom there are more stones that keep them from getting out. When they are fully grown and I live on my own, I plan on building something like a greenhouse for them, but that's for the future!

I hope I answered everything now and I hope I'm not doing too bad, but all the tips are more then welcome!

Kind regards,
Anniek

Ps. Don't mind the dirty water dish, by now I cleaned it out ofcourse haha.

 

[anniek_vd]

I found a picture from last spring in the outside enclosure It didn't have any plants yet, but in the containers were lettuce, endive and forget me nots. And throughout the enclosure we planted Alchemilla, especially percy loved hiding under it!

 

[Tom]

I think you are doing a fine job of tortoise care. Your tortoise looks great. Those bumps are minor and not surprising given the incorrect start the baby had before you got it.

The issues I see:
1. Don't use the spot bulbs for basking. Use an incandescent flood. Arcadia makes them, and those should be available all over Europe.

2. They should never be together. Not indoors or out. Groups can work sometimes, but never pairs. The stress of this might be why they hide all day outside.
3. What size is the indoor enclosure? It needs to be somewhere around 122x244cm as a minimum, for each tortoise.
4. Here is a response I typed up for another thread explaining how to introduce new foods:
If the tortoise is refusing new foods it is because you are trying to go too fast. You are using too much too soon. Start with smaller amounts, mince up and spray the main greens with water, and mix in the new stuff. Imagine only one micro gram of the new stuff. Neither you nor the tortoise could even tell it as there. Two micrograms the next day. Still undetectable. Eventually, you will have one full gram of new stuff mixed into a 300 gram pile of food. That's a 1:300 ratio. Again, the tortoise won't even be able to detect that amount. If you start this process with 1:10 ratio, the tortoise will clearly see and smell the new stuff and be put off by it. Getting them to eat new foods is a very slow process. It can take weeks or months for each new food. Because they live so long, it is worth it to invest this time.

Likewise with the calcium. If you can visibly see or feel calcium on the food, you have used WAY too much. Think about how much of that calcium I could put on YOUR food until you could even detect it. To start with, there would be so little, that you wouldn't have any way of even knowing it was there. Now if I piled a heaping teaspoon on top of your steak, you'd be put off and disgusted by it, right?

Another principal is training. Your tortoise has trained you to give him what he wants. If he doesn't like what you are offering, all he has to do is wait a little while, and you will reward him with what he desires. Tortoises can go days and weeks with no food at all. Missing a meal or two is nothing to a tortoise. One of my favorite axioms goes like this: A hungry tortoise is not a picky tortoise. Make him hungry. Before trying to introduce a new food, feed a reduced ration for several days. Not one or two days, but at least 3 or 4 days. Don't starve him, but your tortoise should be pacing around and feeling antsy. Then introduce the pile of familiar food with the tiniest of tiny amount of new food minced and mixed in. It should be almost as if you've dropped the piece of lettuce on the floor and a tiny pice of "dust" (the new food...) stuck to it. It should not look like you took a handful of the minced old favorite food and rolled it around in the dirt and now it's all covered. Imagine you hadn't eaten much for days and I gave you a big helping of your favorite mashed potatoes and there were 3 tiny tiny flecks of parsley mixed in. You wouldn't even know the parsley was there. Even if you visibly saw the parsley, your brain would tell you that it's a piece of potato skin or pepper for seasoning. Now imagine I had you locked in a cell, you are losing weight and always hungry, and each day your helping of some delicious food that you love had one additional tiny fleck of some new food that you were unfamiliar with and would never eat on its own. The combination of desensitization and ravenous hunger would get you eating just about anything, would it not? Do not feel bad for your tortoise when there is a big pile of delicious nutritious food sitting right in front of it and it chooses to not eat. Just tell yourself: "Oh you don't want to eat today? Well you will be hungry tomorrow mister!"

In this thread, I show pics and describe how to make a temperature controlled shelter for outdoor housing. This will work great in your area in the warmer months. The rest of the thread will have helpful info too:

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

And finally, I see you joined years ago. I typed this up more recently and there is a ton of helpful general info here too:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Heyy thank you so much for your quick respond. Im so happy that I atleast stopped it from getting any worse and I forwarded the compliment!

I would love to get some more tips on my current care, I've been doing it for a couple years now and feel like I slagged a bit because everything feels so normal now. Doing an update on everything never hurts!

I measure my temps with a lasergun and they are 25 to 30 celsius for the basking area, around 18 for the cooler side and in the middle around 20. I inserted a photo of the basking bulbs I use, depending on the temperature outside the enclosure I use 1 or 2 bulbs. Now only the one on the left is on, because temperatures are fine, if I see that it drops I turn on another bulb in the middle of the enclosure to raise the temperatures (basically a couple weeks in winter if it's freezing a bit, it's not so cold where I live). At night the temperatures drop to 18 sometimes 15. I definitely use UV and I replace it every 6 months, I also inserted a picture of the one I use.

My humidity meter broke a while ago so to be honest I don't know for sure, but the substrate is always a bit damp (once every two days I throw in a liter of warm water and mix it through). I soak almost every two days for 15 to 30 minutes.

I use a mix of reptibark and coco coir as substrate and it takes a long time to be dirty, I spot clean throughout the day and clean up all food that hasn't been eaten. I replace it every 4 to 6 months and even then it's not really dirty to be honest.

I'm not sure what you mean by monitoring?

Food is the department I think I definitely need to improve in. Pebble is so picky and I think that's partly my fault too. In the beginning I was so scared with what she could and couldn't eat, especially something from outside. I really want to start introducing way more weeds and plants.

Today though I gave her some forget me not leaves and endive (especially in winter endive is the main thing I give her, I really struggle with what else to give her sometimes). She once in a while get's the little round treats from the picture I inserted and I also give the reptilix as food sometimes (often she doesn't want anything else, I'm afraid she is rather picky...), I also have opuntia which she finally wanted to eat yesterday, she eats nettles when outside cause they are in her outside enclosure and she seems to like them, clovers, dandelions and dandelion leaves, a bit of grass sometimes but that's about it. It's mostly stuff from the grocery store like endive and the white chicory (witlof in dutch). My mom and I are working hard on our vegetable garden at the moment and we want a big part of it to be food for my tortoises, so please come with all the recommondations!

I do not hibernate either of my tortoises, because I'm frankly to scared and I don't want to breed with them anyway. I hope this is okay... I also think they are too young.

We built a big outside enclosure (it's hard to see on the photo, because we covered it for winter). It has a mixture of sand and hummus in it, which we want both my tortoises to be in a couple months a year (when temps allow it, we don't want lamps outside yet) once we build some sleeping places (I inserted a photo of what we are planning on building but then two, one for each tortoise). For now we put them in there when temps allow it and take them back inside for the night. They basically walk around for a couple minutes, eat a bit and the hide the whole day so I don't think they really like it yet. But maybe if they can get really used to it and stay in it also at night it will get better! If you have any tips regarding an outside enclosure, definitely let me know too! I have all kinds of plants in there, wooden hideouts, a big pot they love hiding in, stepping stones etc. Oh and we made sure they can't dig themselves out, the stones are buried deep and on the bottom there are more stones that keep them from getting out. When they are fully grown and I live on my own, I plan on building something like a greenhouse for them, but that's for the future!

I hope I answered everything now and I hope I'm not doing too bad, but all the tips are more then welcome!

Kind regards,
Anniek

Ps. Don't mind the dirty water dish, by now I cleaned it out ofcourse haha.

Hello! Thanks so much for your in depth reply! I second a lot of what Tom says above.

A few of my own notes, for a basking temperature directly under the bulb, you want it reaching 95f(35c) directly underneath, then during the day I’d have temps range 80-85f in the middle and 75f cooler end, 70 night. I’m thinking if things are too cool in there, they might be basking excessively to warm up, which under a spot bulb can definitely contribute towards pyramiding. To boost ambient temperature, instead of using a second basking bulb(which I’d switch out for a floodlight) I’d add a CHE(ceramic heat emitter) in the middle, this will make up the ambient temperature and provide night heat, run on a thermostat 24/7.

Humidity is likely fine, they don’t need it too high at their age

As Tom says if you have two? Definitely do keep them separated at all times, perhaps you could split the outdoor one in two?

If you have long winters that permits indoor living for a significant time during the year, I would consider a size upgrade for each indoors if you can

By monitoring I meant digital ones or analog gauges? The gauges can be inaccurate so always good to check with peopletemp gun is great though!

You might hopefully find some inspiration for the indoor side of things here! And there’s some great outdoor examples too for splitting in half

Enclosure inspiration

Howdy folks! Hope everyone is well! As you all know, I’m a big fan of making threads that cater more towards visual learners like myself, I’ve really been wanting to create a thread full of adult enclosure inspiration for a while now, I’ve managed to find some great references over time! I do...

tortoiseforum.org

This one can always be handy to go over and keep too, explains a bit more about the spot bulbs

Common keeping errors

Hello everyone! I’d been a long time lurker on this site long before joining just under a year ago now, over that time I’ve seen these husbandry issues come up time and time again, sometimes with dire consequences☹️ I thought this thread might serve as a good visual guide for these common...

tortoiseforum.org

Hope you like them!

I found a picture from last spring in the outside enclosure It didn't have any plants yet, but in the containers were lettuce, endive and forget me nots. And throughout the enclosure we planted Alchemilla, especially percy loved hiding under it!

Frigging love your outdoor enclosure by the way!

 

[anniek_vd]

I think you are doing a fine job of tortoise care. Your tortoise looks great. Those bumps are minor and not surprising given the incorrect start the baby had before you got it.

The issues I see:
1. Don't use the spot bulbs for basking. Use an incandescent flood. Arcadia makes them, and those should be available all over Europe.
View attachment 386952
2. They should never be together. Not indoors or out. Groups can work sometimes, but never pairs. The stress of this might be why they hide all day outside.
3. What size is the indoor enclosure? It needs to be somewhere around 122x244cm as a minimum, for each tortoise.
4. Here is a response I typed up for another thread explaining how to introduce new foods:
If the tortoise is refusing new foods it is because you are trying to go too fast. You are using too much too soon. Start with smaller amounts, mince up and spray the main greens with water, and mix in the new stuff. Imagine only one micro gram of the new stuff. Neither you nor the tortoise could even tell it as there. Two micrograms the next day. Still undetectable. Eventually, you will have one full gram of new stuff mixed into a 300 gram pile of food. That's a 1:300 ratio. Again, the tortoise won't even be able to detect that amount. If you start this process with 1:10 ratio, the tortoise will clearly see and smell the new stuff and be put off by it. Getting them to eat new foods is a very slow process. It can take weeks or months for each new food. Because they live so long, it is worth it to invest this time.

Likewise with the calcium. If you can visibly see or feel calcium on the food, you have used WAY too much. Think about how much of that calcium I could put on YOUR food until you could even detect it. To start with, there would be so little, that you wouldn't have any way of even knowing it was there. Now if I piled a heaping teaspoon on top of your steak, you'd be put off and disgusted by it, right?

Another principal is training. Your tortoise has trained you to give him what he wants. If he doesn't like what you are offering, all he has to do is wait a little while, and you will reward him with what he desires. Tortoises can go days and weeks with no food at all. Missing a meal or two is nothing to a tortoise. One of my favorite axioms goes like this: A hungry tortoise is not a picky tortoise. Make him hungry. Before trying to introduce a new food, feed a reduced ration for several days. Not one or two days, but at least 3 or 4 days. Don't starve him, but your tortoise should be pacing around and feeling antsy. Then introduce the pile of familiar food with the tiniest of tiny amount of new food minced and mixed in. It should be almost as if you've dropped the piece of lettuce on the floor and a tiny pice of "dust" (the new food...) stuck to it. It should not look like you took a handful of the minced old favorite food and rolled it around in the dirt and now it's all covered. Imagine you hadn't eaten much for days and I gave you a big helping of your favorite mashed potatoes and there were 3 tiny tiny flecks of parsley mixed in. You wouldn't even know the parsley was there. Even if you visibly saw the parsley, your brain would tell you that it's a piece of potato skin or pepper for seasoning. Now imagine I had you locked in a cell, you are losing weight and always hungry, and each day your helping of some delicious food that you love had one additional tiny fleck of some new food that you were unfamiliar with and would never eat on its own. The combination of desensitization and ravenous hunger would get you eating just about anything, would it not? Do not feel bad for your tortoise when there is a big pile of delicious nutritious food sitting right in front of it and it chooses to not eat. Just tell yourself: "Oh you don't want to eat today? Well you will be hungry tomorrow mister!"

In this thread, I show pics and describe how to make a temperature controlled shelter for outdoor housing. This will work great in your area in the warmer months. The rest of the thread will have helpful info too:

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

And finally, I see you joined years ago. I typed this up more recently and there is a ton of helpful general info here too:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

Happy to hear I’m not doing an awful job, yeey! I’m going to replace the lights, I had the ones you mentioned up until last year but they didn’t deliver anymore and they said this is a good replacement. I should’ve checked myself, but I’ll fix it now! And totally my fault that they are both picky eaters now… I’m going to try your method right away by mixing with the endive, thank you! I have two enclosures of 150 cm, I still live with my parents so I can’t size up yet. And my mom cares for them half of the week due to me going to uni, it’s far from ideal but in the future I’ll live on my own and I’ll size them up both inside. For now is that the reason why I really want them to be more outside, and I’m going to try and prolong that time with your tips as well. It’s just that I am a bit stuck with what I can do due to me not owning the home. I am thinking about maybe trying to see if hibernation is an option for the colder months, so they don’t have to be in too small enclosures. I am going to take my time and read all the amazing threads you send and see what all the possibilities could be for my wonderful animals, thank you so much for your help!

Anniek

 

[anniek_vd]

Hello! Thanks so much for your in depth reply! I second a lot of what Tom says above.

A few of my own notes, for a basking temperature directly under the bulb, you want it reaching 95f(35c) directly underneath, then during the day I’d have temps range 80-85f in the middle and 75f cooler end, 70 night. I’m thinking if things are too cool in there, they might be basking excessively to warm up, which under a spot bulb can definitely contribute towards pyramiding. To boost ambient temperature, instead of using a second basking bulb(which I’d switch out for a floodlight) I’d add a CHE(ceramic heat emitter) in the middle, this will make up the ambient temperature and provide night heat, run on a thermostat 24/7.

Humidity is likely fine, they don’t need it too high at their age

As Tom says if you have two? Definitely do keep them separated at all times, perhaps you could split the outdoor one in two?

If you have long winters that permits indoor living for a significant time during the year, I would consider a size upgrade for each indoors if you can

By monitoring I meant digital ones or analog gauges? The gauges can be inaccurate so always good to check with peopletemp gun is great though!

You might hopefully find some inspiration for the indoor side of things here! And there’s some great outdoor examples too for splitting in half

Enclosure inspiration

Howdy folks! Hope everyone is well! As you all know, I’m a big fan of making threads that cater more towards visual learners like myself, I’ve really been wanting to create a thread full of adult enclosure inspiration for a while now, I’ve managed to find some great references over time! I do...

tortoiseforum.org

This one can always be handy to go over and keep too, explains a bit more about the spot bulbs

Common keeping errors

Hello everyone! I’d been a long time lurker on this site long before joining just under a year ago now, over that time I’ve seen these husbandry issues come up time and time again, sometimes with dire consequences☹️ I thought this thread might serve as a good visual guide for these common...

tortoiseforum.org

Hope you like them!

Frigging love your outdoor enclosure by the way!

Thanks for the extra tips! I’ll order everything I need today to fix the lighting issues. When we open up the outdoors again, I’ll try and see what would be the best way of splitting it up. And thank you for the compliment, I’m so happy with it too. It’s so big and I’m so glad my parents are okay with me changing their backyard hahha. They knew what I took in before I rescued pebble and percy tho, and they are now beloved family members Happy to hear my temp gun is good too! I love the enclosure inspiration thread, gives me so much ideas for inside and out! Also thank you for the common errors thread, never hurts! Thank you for all your help!!

Anniek