My 2 year old Eastern Hermann's size

[mccombs]

(S)he is 42g and has a straight carapace length of approx. 57mm which seems to fit pretty decently on the Jacksons ratio chart, maybe he's a little underweight but its only a guideline anyway. More pressingly however, for his age (2 years, 0 months) isn't he quite small?


I feed his shell area in food on average once every 1.5 days. His diet consists of a mixture of cress, dandelion leaf, basil, kale, clover & hebe. He has a cuttle fish bone and I also occasionally sprinkle calcium supplement.


His shell is well formed with no signs of pyramiding. As far as I can tell he's healthy. He has also never been hibernated.

Opinions please friends

 

[daniellenc]

He should be fed daily and always have food to graze on. I don’t know about healthy weight but you should be providing fresh food morning and evening.

 

[teresaf]

Yes he seems quite small. If he's still thriving that may not be an issue and someday he'll just start growing like crazy but usually when they don't grow it's a bad sign of what folks call here as "failure to thrive syndrome". If his shell, especially on the bottom, starts getting soft that's really bad. You might have better luck with him growing in a high humidity high-heat environment we call them "closed Chambers".
Close Chambers are recommended for all hatchlings of every species. It's easier to control the temperature and humidity of their environment if the temperature and humidity can't escape.... The biggest thing to remember using this method is to keep the temperature above 80 in every deepest darkest pocket of his enclosure. You don't want high humidity and COLD temperatures. thats one of the fastest ways of killing a tortoise. The trick is temperatures above 80 and high humidity above 80 that way the tortoise gets the hydration and temperature it needs to digest its food and keep his shell growing smooth....

 

[mccombs]

Yes he seems quite small. If he's still thriving that may not be an issue and someday he'll just start growing like crazy but usually when they don't grow it's a bad sign of what folks call here as "failure to thrive syndrome". If his shell, especially on the bottom, starts getting soft that's really bad. You might have better luck with him growing in a high humidity high-heat environment we call them "closed Chambers".
Close Chambers are recommended for all hatchlings of every species. It's easier to control the temperature and humidity of their environment if the temperature and humidity can't escape.... The biggest thing to remember using this method is to keep the temperature above 80 in every deepest darkest pocket of his enclosure. You don't want high humidity and COLD temperatures. thats one of the fastest ways of killing a tortoise. The trick is temperatures above 80 and high humidity above 80 that way the tortoise gets the hydration and temperature it needs to digest its food and keep his shell growing smooth....

Failure to thrive? :O Gosh that scares me a little. Unfortunately I don't think that it is viable for me to be changing his enclosure :/ Also he's outside a lot of the time now

His shell doesn't seem soft. I'm going to increase his food intake and calcium supplement and see how that goes.

 

[mccombs]

He should be fed daily and always have food to graze on. I don’t know about healthy weight but you should be providing fresh food morning and evening.

Yea I've begun to feed him daily with a more diverse diet too. Hopefully that helps