The title of this thread is a bit misleading. I don't intend to enlighten you all with my vast and growing knowledge of this subject. Quite the contrary, I hope that you all can enlighten me. Let me explain:
Pyramiding is one of those mysteries that may never be entirely solved, but that won't stop me from trying. I view this as a giant puzzle. I've been searching for pieces since the early nineties, and I've found a few, but not enough to really see the picture yet. Part of the problem is that nobody knows how many pieces there are. I'd like to share what I've figured out and observed. Maybe I've got some pieces that will fit with somebody else's and it will all start to make more sense.
I have been extremely frustrated by this for nearly 20 years. I have been dealing with pyramiding as pet shop employee since the late 80's. I always assumed the people were doing something wrong because I had read the books and I knew everything there was to know. Of course, I had never actually raised a hatchling. In 1993 I got my first sulcata hatchling and even though I did just what the books and experts said, he pyramided. Not bad, but some. He was very healthy and active, but pyramided. I got Scooter and Burt(at first I thought it was Bertha) in 1998. Now I had learned more about proper diet and care. I was on the cutting edge. I fed more grasses and weeds and less store bought, "wet" food. I also fed much smaller quantities and occasionally skipped a day. Their enclosures were huge and very well heated. They got loads of direct sunshine. They still pyramided. The common knowledge at the time said keep them on dry substrate, because they are a desert species and they'll get a respiratory infection like all those desert tortoises that are inappropriately housed near the beach, if you don't. Even back then I wondered how you could live in a humid area and have a healthy, respiratory-disease free sulcata. I did my best for them, but I knew it had nothing to do with diet, as all of mine were fed a great diet in reasonably small quantities. My torts are all pretty undersize for their age, in fact, because I believed that growing too fast was a contributing factor to pyramiding. Fast forward to 2007. I read the Fife brothers Leopard Tortoise book and things started making some sense. They introduced(at least to me), the concept of a humid hide box. Of course, babies hide in humid burrows or plant root balls in the wild. They're hardly ever above ground in the dry heat. This was a valuable puzzle piece.
I went and got another hatchling, Daisy, from a friend. She had already started pyramiding pretty bad at only three months when I got her. I set her up on sani-chips, but with a good size humid hide box. Months went by and no change. She continued to pyramid. I continually upped the moisture content, until it was wet in the box, while watching for shell rot or respiratory signs like a hawk. No change. After a few months of this, I switched her into a large horse trough with orchid coir mixed with coco fiber as a substrate and kept that AND the hide box wet. I covered most of the top, just leaving enough room for her light fixture to get in. She's been like that for several months now and no change. Still pyramiding. I pull her out of there for a soak, sunshine and drying for an hour or two almost every day. I'm being very careful with this as far as her health goes. She's very happy, healthy and active. Her shell is rock hard, her eyes are clear, her appetite is great, she does great poops during her soaks, but still no change in the pyramiding.
Here's my main premise based on my experiences over the last 30 years: Pyramiding is caused by growth in the absence of enough humidity.
I think diet, sun, exercise, calcium/d3, enclosure size and all the other purported factors have a secondary, if any, role. For example; food. More food, or more protein, causes more growth. So with inadequate humidity, an overfed or improperly fed tortoise will pyramid MORE than one who's fed properly. But the properly fed one will still pyramid.
Let me share a few observations. My job takes me all over the country and the world. Whenever I go out of town, I always like to check out the local pet shops and animal parks. On a recent job in New Orleans it took me until my sixth pet shop to find a pyramided tort. Most of the kids in the pet shops didn't even know what pyramiding was. In contrast, it would be unusual to see a CH/CR tortoise in a Southern CA pet shop that wasn't pyramided. The one pyramided tortoise in New orleans had been there since it was a hatchling. It was now nine months old, very big, housed on dry grass-pellet bedding, with an incandescent bulb, in an air conditioned store. Most people there raise their babies outside since the weather is so favorable year round. Well, if you've never been there, let me tell you... its humid. Very humid all the time. Same for South Florida and no pyramiding there either. It didn't matter what they were fed, how they were housed, or what, if any, supplementation was used. If they had access to the outside air, they just didn't pyramid.
So how come Daisy won't stop pyramiding, now that she's obviously being kept humid enough? Here comes the second part of my theory.
I've seen small wild caught torts grow up side by side with captives and the wild ones stay smooth, while the captives continue pyramiding. This never made sense to me. Same diet, same care, same heat and humidity, same everything, but you couldn't make the wild one pyramid and you couldn't stop the captive raised one. It seems that, how they are started as a brand new hatchling, and for the first few months, especially, sets the tone for how their shell will form forever. With sulcatas, the magic number seems to be around four inches. If you can get them smooth to four inches, they'll stay smooth no matter what you do after that. This is advantageous, as that is right around the time I like to move them permanently outdoors. I'm looking to buy or adopt another SMOOTH hatchling to fully test this theory.
In my case, the pyramiding is not accompanied by any of the other maladies so often associated with it, and appears to be only cosmetic.
There is the gist of what I know. Please correct any fallacies I may have created and add anything that I am missing. Please feel free ask any questions about my husbandry or methods, or point out anything wrong. I'll answer all questions honestly and openly. I want to learn here and my pride and ego will be taking a back seat. For the benefit of all of our amazing tortoises, I would like nothing better than to see this demystified.
Pyramiding is one of those mysteries that may never be entirely solved, but that won't stop me from trying. I view this as a giant puzzle. I've been searching for pieces since the early nineties, and I've found a few, but not enough to really see the picture yet. Part of the problem is that nobody knows how many pieces there are. I'd like to share what I've figured out and observed. Maybe I've got some pieces that will fit with somebody else's and it will all start to make more sense.
I have been extremely frustrated by this for nearly 20 years. I have been dealing with pyramiding as pet shop employee since the late 80's. I always assumed the people were doing something wrong because I had read the books and I knew everything there was to know. Of course, I had never actually raised a hatchling. In 1993 I got my first sulcata hatchling and even though I did just what the books and experts said, he pyramided. Not bad, but some. He was very healthy and active, but pyramided. I got Scooter and Burt(at first I thought it was Bertha) in 1998. Now I had learned more about proper diet and care. I was on the cutting edge. I fed more grasses and weeds and less store bought, "wet" food. I also fed much smaller quantities and occasionally skipped a day. Their enclosures were huge and very well heated. They got loads of direct sunshine. They still pyramided. The common knowledge at the time said keep them on dry substrate, because they are a desert species and they'll get a respiratory infection like all those desert tortoises that are inappropriately housed near the beach, if you don't. Even back then I wondered how you could live in a humid area and have a healthy, respiratory-disease free sulcata. I did my best for them, but I knew it had nothing to do with diet, as all of mine were fed a great diet in reasonably small quantities. My torts are all pretty undersize for their age, in fact, because I believed that growing too fast was a contributing factor to pyramiding. Fast forward to 2007. I read the Fife brothers Leopard Tortoise book and things started making some sense. They introduced(at least to me), the concept of a humid hide box. Of course, babies hide in humid burrows or plant root balls in the wild. They're hardly ever above ground in the dry heat. This was a valuable puzzle piece.
I went and got another hatchling, Daisy, from a friend. She had already started pyramiding pretty bad at only three months when I got her. I set her up on sani-chips, but with a good size humid hide box. Months went by and no change. She continued to pyramid. I continually upped the moisture content, until it was wet in the box, while watching for shell rot or respiratory signs like a hawk. No change. After a few months of this, I switched her into a large horse trough with orchid coir mixed with coco fiber as a substrate and kept that AND the hide box wet. I covered most of the top, just leaving enough room for her light fixture to get in. She's been like that for several months now and no change. Still pyramiding. I pull her out of there for a soak, sunshine and drying for an hour or two almost every day. I'm being very careful with this as far as her health goes. She's very happy, healthy and active. Her shell is rock hard, her eyes are clear, her appetite is great, she does great poops during her soaks, but still no change in the pyramiding.
Here's my main premise based on my experiences over the last 30 years: Pyramiding is caused by growth in the absence of enough humidity.
I think diet, sun, exercise, calcium/d3, enclosure size and all the other purported factors have a secondary, if any, role. For example; food. More food, or more protein, causes more growth. So with inadequate humidity, an overfed or improperly fed tortoise will pyramid MORE than one who's fed properly. But the properly fed one will still pyramid.
Let me share a few observations. My job takes me all over the country and the world. Whenever I go out of town, I always like to check out the local pet shops and animal parks. On a recent job in New Orleans it took me until my sixth pet shop to find a pyramided tort. Most of the kids in the pet shops didn't even know what pyramiding was. In contrast, it would be unusual to see a CH/CR tortoise in a Southern CA pet shop that wasn't pyramided. The one pyramided tortoise in New orleans had been there since it was a hatchling. It was now nine months old, very big, housed on dry grass-pellet bedding, with an incandescent bulb, in an air conditioned store. Most people there raise their babies outside since the weather is so favorable year round. Well, if you've never been there, let me tell you... its humid. Very humid all the time. Same for South Florida and no pyramiding there either. It didn't matter what they were fed, how they were housed, or what, if any, supplementation was used. If they had access to the outside air, they just didn't pyramid.
So how come Daisy won't stop pyramiding, now that she's obviously being kept humid enough? Here comes the second part of my theory.
I've seen small wild caught torts grow up side by side with captives and the wild ones stay smooth, while the captives continue pyramiding. This never made sense to me. Same diet, same care, same heat and humidity, same everything, but you couldn't make the wild one pyramid and you couldn't stop the captive raised one. It seems that, how they are started as a brand new hatchling, and for the first few months, especially, sets the tone for how their shell will form forever. With sulcatas, the magic number seems to be around four inches. If you can get them smooth to four inches, they'll stay smooth no matter what you do after that. This is advantageous, as that is right around the time I like to move them permanently outdoors. I'm looking to buy or adopt another SMOOTH hatchling to fully test this theory.
In my case, the pyramiding is not accompanied by any of the other maladies so often associated with it, and appears to be only cosmetic.
There is the gist of what I know. Please correct any fallacies I may have created and add anything that I am missing. Please feel free ask any questions about my husbandry or methods, or point out anything wrong. I'll answer all questions honestly and openly. I want to learn here and my pride and ego will be taking a back seat. For the benefit of all of our amazing tortoises, I would like nothing better than to see this demystified.