my new sulcata hatchling =) ( shell pyramiding help pls?)

[skuttle]

hi guys. i just had this two guys for 4 days. waht do you think regarding there pyramiding? i noticed that the border colored black in between there scutes are kinda wide unlike hatchlings i've seen here who has border like pencil line thick. does this mean that my babies have severe pyramiding or well develop them? hoping for you guys to enlighten me? thanks in advance

 

[mainey34]

RE: mew new sulcata hacthling=) can i get some advice regarding shell pyramiding pls?

Hello, yes, they do have some pyramiding. How old are they? Do you know what kind of conditions they were kept in? What were they fed? What is your setup? And what are you feeding? Are you providing outdoor time?

 

[skuttle]

RE: mew new sulcata hacthling=) can i get some advice regarding shell pyramiding pls?

Hello, yes, they do have some pyramiding. How old are they? Do you know what kind of conditions they were kept in? What were they fed? What is your setup? And what are you feeding? Are you providing outdoor time?

honestly no idea of what there age are. im trying my best to do the setup of sir tom( high humidity etc) do you think its really severe? where can i see the new growth of the shell and if the new growth of the shell is not pyramiding? so that i can see if what im doing is alright. thanks

 

[skuttle]

RE: mew new sulcata hacthling=) can i get some advice regarding shell pyramiding pls?

Hello, yes, they do have some pyramiding. How old are they? Do you know what kind of conditions they were kept in? What were they fed? What is your setup? And what are you feeding? Are you providing outdoor time?

honestly no idea of what there age are. im trying my best to do the setup of sir tom( high humidity etc) do you think its really severe? where can i see the new growth of the shell and if the new growth of the shell is not pyramiding? so that i can see if what im doing is alright. anyone can help me pls? thanks

 

[mainey34]

I do not believe that it is severe. How long have you had them? Do you know what conditions they were in? The new growth is between the secutes. The brown lines. It looks like it is growing fine. Can you provide your setup and what you are feeding to better help you?

 

[skuttle]

my temp is between 29-32 celsius and humidity lowest is 65 and highest is 90 percent. but on average i should say 75 usually. i have uvb lamp but dont use heat lamp because the heat of the uvb lamp makes the enclosure at 32 degrees. but when i close the uvb bulb 29-30 is the temp of the enclosure. i just got them about a week ago. i feed them bok choy, saluyot(jutes),kangkong on alternate basis because really cant find any grasses and cactus that im sure of that has no pesticides. also no stocks of mazuri and zoomed grassland in our country now. i live by the way in a tropical country so usual room temp is 27-29(rainy season now) humidity is 60 plus percent on average. havent gotten them a picture when i bought them so was wondering if the pyramiding was with the breeders care/husbandry. frankly what i dont understand is compairing my suclata to others in the forum. noticed that the one you are referring to like the line between the scutes mine has a bit wider inbetween the scutes unlike the other hatchlings here noticed there hatchlings has like pencil tip like lines very thin. why do you think mine is wider? is it because i overfeed them(too fast growth)? i just feed them till they stop eating(usually there are excess food in the enclosure the whole day). thanks

 

[SulcataSquirt]

Their is no pyramiding present, I would not worry, keep your temps right, daily soaks and keep the humidity up and you will have your self a smooth growing tort.

 

[apromann4]

Yeah, there absolutely no pyramiding, good looking torts, seems very healthy

Sent from my S100 using TortForum mobile app

 

[skuttle]

thanks guys. thanks bro ryan! sorry to ask dumb questions but where do i find the new growth? is it in the black colored border/edges of the scutes? i mean when you look closely to my tortoise shell. the scutes are raised and the black border/edges of the cutes are lower than the scutes so was thinking the raised scutes was with the previous owners care. then the new growth is the black part/margin/edges of the scutes so it is looking like good growth because its flat and lower than the acutes? am i correct? sorry cant really explain well.

 

[Tom]

They are not pyramiding. There is not enough new growth for that yet. New growth occurs in the margins around each scute.

Your ambient temp of 29-32 is great, but they STILL need a basking spot where they can get warmer than that. You can use a small 50 watt regular flood bulb and raise or lower the fixture to get the spot directly under the bulb up to about 38. If this raises the temp of the whole enclosure then your enclosure is too small. Raising sulcatas at one ambient temp does not work well. I've tried it. They need to be able to warm up to around 38, even if the room temp is relatively warm.

What are you using for a UV bulb? In a country like yours with perfect tortoise weather, you should be using real sunshine in a safe, secure outdoor enclosure. Make sure there is always shade and cover available outside. They only need an hour two or three times a week to get their UV needs met.

And there has got to be someplace in your entire country where they don't use pesticides on the grass and weeds. You can grow your own in pots if need be. Your tortoises need more than a few types of grocery store greens to stay healthy and grow well. Its your job to provide that. Are there no hibiscus bushes near you? Mulberry trees? Wooded areas with no pesticides? What does the breeder of your babies feed his/her animals?

 

[skuttle]

thanks sir tom. there are hibiscus bushes in our country. actually there is one outside my neighbors house. its been there for more or less 10 years plus i can get a few leaves twice a week for my tort since they are hathclings still but kinda worried since its outside her house maybe people throw contaminated things in there or shall i say the owner puts fertilizer. i can see some grasses grwoing everywhere but kinda paranoid to cut some to give to my babies because no idea about if they have pesti or fertilizer. gonna buy tomorrow cactus and hibiscus try to grow my own hope grows really fast to feed my babies=) im using arcadia fluorescent lamp. can i ask if i can bask them in sunlight even though its really windy or the air is kinda cold but there is sunlight? kinda worried they might get RI because someone told me they can get RI from cold air

 

[Tom]

Fertilizers down in the ground are fine. The plants use that material to grow and its properly assimilated into the plant tissue. Its fine. Just don't let your tortoise walk up and directly eat fertilizer that may be on the surface. Leaves and flowers from fertilized plants are fine. Now if pesticides are directly sprayed on the leaves, this is a problem and I would not use that bush for food. Can you ask the people if they use pesticide sprays? You can give hibiscus leaves 5 times a week as long as they are getting other things too. Grass is really good for sulcatas. I use scissors and chop it up super fine for babies. There is no harm in soaking and rinsing your sulcatas food in some clean water before feeding. This can wash off any residue from things you don't want.

Is your florescent bulb a long tube, or is it a tight coil, called a cfl here?

For basking you need a thermometer or a temp gun. Measure the temps in the area that you want to use for basking. Wet and cool is not good. But in the tropical sun, wet and cool seems unlikely. Always make sure your tortoise can get out of the sun and cool off if needed. There are many ideas for sunning enclosures in the links in my signature. In a country like yours, I would be more worried about over heating, than being too cool in a sunny spot.

 

[Greg T]

I don't see any pyramiding either. They have nice scutes and show some new growth also. Those black lines you are asking about is the new growth and will continue. Keep them in proper conditions and they will grow nice and smooth, like outlined in previous posts.

 

[skuttle]

sir tom. thanks again for the help really appreciate it. now me being paramoid kinda subsided =) so fertilizers on plants are still ok if its just the leaves and flower that the tortoise eats right? pesticide i think wouldnt be a problem since my neighbor i think doesnt mind much the plants growing outside her house. sorry for asking so much and being paranoid. actually 5 years ago i had three radiated ,one yniphora and one captive bred sucata(8 years old) but the problem two radiated tortoise died without me knowing what caused their deaths. one is 5 inch and the other hatchling. was raising them in a aquarium in the garage. the yni and the other radiata i sold to a friend because worried they might die too. recently visited my friend the yni is big now but had a very bad pyramiding and the radiated has a nice shell growth. i guess my bad in raising the yni in a small terrarium with too much heat via lightbulb 40 watts really close to him. so the yniphora shell before i sold him to a friend has a very bad pyramiding already but i bought him without any pyramiding. the sulcata too died at age 8. was a kid back then just buying pets and not researching what to do i jsut listen to importers waht to do. so i really want now to give the best care to my tortoise for them to be healthy and live a long life.

 

[tiff3grl]

They look good to me Cute torts!

 

[Tom]

sir tom. thanks again for the help really appreciate it. now me being paramoid kinda subsided =) so fertilizers on plants are still ok if its just the leaves and flower that the tortoise eats right? pesticide i think wouldnt be a problem since my neighbor i think doesnt mind much the plants growing outside her house. sorry for asking so much and being paranoid. actually 5 years ago i had three radiated ,one yniphora and one captive bred sucata(8 years old) but the problem two radiated tortoise died without me knowing what caused their deaths. one is 5 inch and the other hatchling. was raising them in a aquarium in the garage. the yni and the other radiata i sold to a friend because worried they might die too. recently visited my friend the yni is big now but had a very bad pyramiding and the radiated has a nice shell growth. i guess my bad in raising the yni in a small terrarium with too much heat via lightbulb 40 watts really close to him. so the yniphora shell before i sold him to a friend has a very bad pyramiding already but i bought him without any pyramiding. the sulcata too died at age 8. was a kid back then just buying pets and not researching what to do i jsut listen to importers waht to do. so i really want now to give the best care to my tortoise for them to be healthy and live a long life.

Fertilizers down in the ground where the roots are are fine. Fertilizers directly on the leaves would not be okay to feed out.

There is no way for anyone to know what killed your other ones, but I can can fathom and educated guess, that it was from mixing species. Different tortoise species from around the world harbor certain parasites and pathogens. They are all pretty much immune to the ones in the area where they come from and they seem to tolerate them well. When you put species from two different parts of Madagascar in a with a species from Africa, and they get exposed to each others "bugs", it is quite common for one or all of them to die. This is why I, and many others here, strongly recommend NOT mixing species. Behaviorally, its a pretty bad idea too, as most tortoises do not like to be crowded, especially with foreign species. It's an added stressor, that can sometimes put them over the edge.

Your next problem will be that one of yours is going to start growing much faster than the other, because pairs are not a good idea. I would separate yours, or get a third one.

 

[skuttle]

thanks guys especially sir tom for all the advices. i would probably get another one. i was thinking maybe that i fed them the leaves back then of the hibiscus or they had a RI. the little radiata doesnt want to eat for a while then died and the 5 inch radiata isnt a good eater to start with but still eats when i got him but suddenly died so i was shocked. the radiata that didnt die was the one who eats a lot. actually among the three radiated and one yniphora. i was really concerned with that yni because he was just a hatchling and i hand fed him to eat. he doesnt want to eat on his own. thats why out of my being noob heated the whole enclosure really high. he didnt die and his really big now but his shell is fully pyramided and looks like a sulcata shell pyramided(my guess was the enclosure to dry because of the heat of whole enclosure was really hot). so i really beleive in the humidity thing you discovered. notice also the hatchlings sulcata raised outdoors in our country tends to be the one not having much pyramiding because our country is really humid. can i ask how many times a day do you feed hatchling sulcatas? i feed mine twice a day everything they can eat and i leave some everytime so they can eat when im not around. is it too much? thanks again

 

[Tom]

In the right conditions (warm and humid), free feeding is fine. It's best if they are fed "natural" foods for this, like grass, weeds and leaves, instead of grocery store produce.

 

[skuttle]

In the right conditions (warm and humid), free feeding is fine. It's best if they are fed "natural" foods for this, like grass, weeds and leaves, instead of grocery store produce.

Thanks. Off- topic sir tom are all hibiscus edible? I mean there are lots of hibiscus kinds. Rosa senensis (red)is edible right? So if i see a res flowered hibiscus definitely its edible right?

 

[Tom]

I'm familiar with Hibiscus sabdariffa, H. senensis and Hibiscus syriacus. All three of these are great for tortoises.