Minimal Growth Mystery

[Toons1978]

On 15 December 2016, I received 4 hatchling Spb Leopard tortoise hatchlings. Here they are in the box in which they were shipped (I took them out of their individual deli cups).

Their shared enclosure was set up in the enclosed chamber style. Low temp end is 82F, higher temp end is 96F. The humidity is nice and high and their hide box utilizes moistened moss. Their water bowl is a terra cotta dish. They all, to this day, eat normally; they're given prepared diets(Mazuri/ZooMed/Marion) 3 days a week, then get fresh veggies with calcium & multi-vitamin powder on opposite 3 days. Like all of my young tortoises they are soaked 6 days a week, older tortoises (>4 yrs) get soaked twice a week.

At about 4 months it was pretty obvious that two were outgrowing the other two at a lopsided pace. To prevent the two smaller ones from being out-competed for food I separated them into two pairs expecting the two smaller ones to then start spurting. This did not happen. The two larger ones kept on trucking while the two smaller continued to just stagnate. The picture below shows each tortoise on the day I received them next to themselves 1 year later, 15 Dec 17.

The two smaller tortoises skyrocketed while the two heavier ones haven't even doubled their weight yet. The 49g tortoise is the only of the two that looks physically "off." Its name is valentine due to the heart shaped on its fwd most vertebral scute. On arrival the keratin of the shell seemed thin and appeared to follow the contours of the underlying ribs. That as you can see has corrected itself but one odd trait still remains, puffy skin, most prominent after eating.
This is a photo of Valentine at 8 months old exhibiting the skin puffing:


Valentine's partner in non-growth, Eclipse(48g hatchling), named for the waning moon shapes on vertebral scutes, does not have this odd post-meal puffing.

So my first thought was this text-book "Hatchling Failure Syndrome" as spelled out by Tom in his thread on the subject. What makes me have some doubt is the fact that only half of these guys are failing to grow. If the breeder screwed things up I would expect all to be little runts not just two. I also wouldn't expect them to have lasted a year. All four are active eaters, they drink when thirsty, all four wander around their respective enclosures and sleep where ever, when ever, crap regularly, etc. Behaviorally, all four are normal little Leos. Other than the pictured skin puff, nothing else seems odd or symptomatic of some other problem.

For further data I'm including screen shots of the charts I keep. The yellow numbers are SCL to OCL ratio that I recently began to track.

And in this chart you can see how their weights diverged rather early on:


After a year it is a mystery to me. I now ask this community, Hypotheses?

 

[Tom]

Three plausible explanations come to mind. Two of them have nothing to do with your care, and one does.

1. Some breeders incubate on perlite. Babies eat it and it can cause this sort of failure to grow and thrive. Some babies seem to eat less, or be less affected by it, so even clutch mates will sometimes show a different result. I bought 20 sulcata hatchlings that were incubated on perlite and about 1/3 failed to thrive, 1/3 did just okay, and 1/3 did great and grew normally. All came from the same source and were started identically.
2. Some breeders start babies too dry. They keep them outside all day, or inside on dry substrate, or don't soak them enough. Again, some babies survive this routine and do okay, and some babies don't.
3. All of my tortoises try to eat any long fibered moss I put in the enclosures. This can cause impaction and it can take up space instead of what they should be eating and digesting.

Where did you get them? How were they started? A call to the breeder should help confirm or deny the first two possibilities.

I wouldn't house them as pairs. It just isn't good for them.

 

[Toons1978]

Tom, thanks for replying and hypothesizing based on your experience

Some breeders incubate on perlite. Babies eat it and it can cause this sort of failure to grow and thrive. Some babies seem to eat less, or be less affected by it, so even clutch mates will sometimes show a different result. I bought 20 sulcata hatchlings that were incubated on perlite and about 1/3 failed to thrive, 1/3 did just okay, and 1/3 did great and grew normally. All came from the same source and were started identically.

The "some" aspect is quite frustrating. What about perlite causes failure? Does it not digest and clog up the system or does it digest and poison them when it breaks down?

Your post mentioned Daisy suddenly growing after 2 years. Was her growth as slow as my two and did the spurt show normal growth as if the previous two years didn't exist and she was born that year?

Have you had/seen any other tortoises since your HFS post that lasted well beyond a few months like this?

All of my tortoises try to eat any long fibered moss I put in the enclosures. This can cause impaction and it can take up space instead of what they should be eating and digesting.

I've never notice them munching at it or seen it in their stool. I don't watch them 24/7 and if it was impacting, I suppose I wouldn't see it in their stool; but they aren't clogged up as they do crap quite a bit, most often during soaks as one would expect.

Where did you get them? How were they started? A call to the breeder should help confirm or deny the first two possibilities.

I got them from a fellow in Texas, a quick review of his facebook page told me he keeps them in a hydrating environment as babies but, he does incubate on perlite.....

I wouldn't house them as pairs. It just isn't good for them.

Relative to their size, their enclosure is pretty spacious, has hills for exercise, and numerous visual barriers in the event any domination activity were happening. It is something I pay attention to but haven't seen in either enclosure. I witnessed an extreme version in my young Burmese stars.

I bought one and realized I can't have just one so a week later I drove up and bought a second from the same group the first on was raised in. I figured they were raised together and should get a long just fine. I was wrong; nearly immediately the first one I purchased, who was also smaller by about 50g & 2cm, began harassing the new addition. All the classic signs of bullying, constant chasing, mounting(at only 3"), and blocking movement. After a two days I set them up in a larger enclosure with similar enrichment/anti bullying measures and it worked for a about a month, maybe a little longer. One day the chasing and mounting began again so I just gave in and separated them. They will stay separate until I get a third and subsequent burms so that group dynamics come into play vs the one on one dominance behavior.

As for my leopards, while I haven't seen this, proactively preventing dominating behavior is a pretty good excuse to get a few more and make two small groups.

 

[Tom]

In the group of 20 sulcata babies, I had two of the non-thrivers necropsied. The vet found "a gray, sandy sludge" lining their intestinal tract. I incorrectly assumed that it was broken down vermiculite because the breeder leaves them in the incubator for a week while they absorb their yolk sacs instead of using a brooder box. The breeder was indignant that I would suggest such a thing, and he corrected me, telling me that it could not be vermiculite, because he only uses perlite… Ummmmmm… I think we found the problem. It seems that some of the babies either ate less, or were able to pass it better. How much they ate, and how it affects each individual is a great big "unknown". In the three years I had them, the slower growers never caught up and the faster growers remained just fine. The experience taught me to never expose a tortoise to perlite.

Daisy suffered from damaged kidneys from the dry routine early on. If the kidneys are too badly damaged by early dehydration, they eventually die. But some of them only have "some" kidney damage. Its not enough to kill them, but it tremendously hampers their ability to thrive and grow. Some of them, like my Daisy girl, can overcome it. Some stay stunted forever like the new rude poster who has a 5 year old sulcata that still fits in the palm of his or her hand. I've seen many of these dry started babies survive and do okay long term, and of course, we've all seen them die. Generally, if they make it past 50 grams and continue growing, they are going to survive and eventually grow up and be normal. Damaged nephrons cannot be repaired, but I think new ones have to eventually grow as the tortoise grows, right? The kidney on a 150 pound adult sulcata is significantly larger than the kidney on a 35 gram hatchling, right?

There does not have to be overt obvious hostility and attacks, like what you saw with your stars, for the pair thing to be a problem. They don't want to "share" territory and resources. The presence of the other one causes low level chronic stress and this can hamper the immune system and cause all sorts of problems. I would not house them as a pair, and your idea of adding more sounds like music to my ears. MORE TORTOISES!!!!

 

[Bambam1989]

I have found this discussion to be fascinating.
Is there any theories on how you may be able to "flush" the buildup from a torts digestion tract?

 

[Tom]

I have found this discussion to be fascinating.
Is there any theories on how you may be able to "flush" the buildup from a torts digestion tract?

I use vermiculite. I remove the babies form the incubation media and into a brooder box as soon as they leave their egg on their own power. This is usually 8-24 hours after the first pip. After about 7-10 days of eating, I will see their first poops in the soaking water. There are always little flecks of vermiculite in their first 2 or 3 bowel movements.

So it would seem that vermiculite, in small quantities, doesn't break down, cause impaction, or get stuck in the GI tract. Other than high fiber food, I don't know how you'd push things through. Those babies that died from the perlite were eating high fiber foods, but they didn't eat as much as their siblings who were not blocked up with perlite.

My solution is to never use any perlite.

 

[Toons1978]

Well, It's been about two years and two months since I made this post. Earlier this month the non-growing tortoise Valentine finally died after only ever achieving a maximum weight of 76 grams in her 3 years, 3 month life. The other slow grower, Eclipse has reached 165 grams; still puny compared to the other two normal growing clutch mates that are now over 2 Kg.

I took advantage of her passing and performed a necropsy hoping to gain some insight. The root cause of her failure to grow was very obvious. Her small intestines were nearly absent! I would have expected to see no less than 3 cm of small intestine in a tortoise her size but instead her stomach was connected almost directly to her colon (large intestine). The normally folded or knotty-looking organ just wasn't there. Since the small and large intestine in a tortoise look nothing like the human configuration it is kind of hard to explain unless you've seen in detail the inside of a tortoise. And with little to no surface area to properly absorb nutrients, it is amazing she lived this long.

That raises a quality of life question for the other slow grower, Eclipse. While he's managed to achieve more than double Valentine's weight, he very likely has a similar birth defect. So while these two always ate and had food transitioning their digestive tracts, in essence their bodies have been starved for nutrients this whole time. Valentine absorbed just enough to keep her alive a smidge more, Eclipse is similar with a slightly large smidge. While I am not entertaining the idea of putting Eclipse "out of his misery," it does give me pause to wonder if my desire to help Eclipse persevere despite defect is the right choice.

I've posted a video about this on my YouTube channel for anyone interested in hearing the story in video format.

 

[Beasty_Artemis]

"Some stay stunted forever like the new rude poster who has a 5 year old sulcata that still fits in the palm of his or her hand."

Holy #%$&*!!!!! No way!?
Is this a real post somewhere? Poor baby...