Odd jaw/mouth growth

[AlfredSulcata]

Alfred has developed a huge underbite if you will, on his lower jaw. His upper jaw is kind of curving out on the sides. I believe this may be from lawn living, and not having rocks or concrete to eat off of and keep his beak trimmed, but I'm not sure. Is this a health problem that needs medication? This happened a while back and it eventually fell off. Any advice or info would be appreciated.

 

[crimson_lotus]

I suggest a beak trim. There should be some more info on how to do it somewhere on this forum. Personally I never had to.

 

[Minority2]

Just get a dremel tool and file the beak down. Quick and relatively painless.

Grab an extra person if you're worried about whether or not the tortoise would swing his or her arms around while you're grinding the beak down. In my experience, the smaller tortoises species usually just let it happen even if you're using something slower like a nail filer.

 

[zovick]

Alfred has developed a huge underbite if you will, on his lower jaw. His upper jaw is kind of curving out on the sides. I believe this may be from lawn living, and not having rocks or concrete to eat off of and keep his beak trimmed, but I'm not sure. Is this a health problem that needs medication? This happened a while back and it eventually fell off. Any advice or info would be appreciated.View attachment 304849

Just FYI, I am a dentist.

I would recommend taking the tortoise to a good exotics vet who can reshape both the upper and lower jaws to occlude (meet) properly. Note that this may require more than one visit since too much trimming done all at one time might result in injuring the underlying jawbones. It may also require sedating/anesthetizing the tortoise to get a decent result. Once this reshaping of the jaws into their proper occlusal forms is accomplished, the two jaws should then work as they normally would to wear each other down when the tortoise is eating and keep future overgrowth from occurring.

 

[AlfredSulcata]

Just get a dremel tool and file the beak down. Quick and relatively painless.

Grab an extra person if you're worried about whether or not the tortoise would swing his or her arms around while you're grinding the beak down. In my experience, the smaller tortoises species usually just let it happen even if you're using something slower like a nail filer.

You realize this is a 115 pound 48 year old specimen? Maybe you could come over and hold his head against his will?

 

[Minority2]

You realize this is a 115 pound 48 year old specimen? Maybe you could come over and hold his head against his will?

I've worked with heavier sulcatas as a part-time farm hand back when I was still in the service.

 

[zovick]

You realize this is a 115 pound 48 year old specimen? Maybe you could come over and hold his head against his will?

That is why I recommended a good exotics vet and said it might be necessary to sedate the tortoise.

I am curious if you know where that tortoise originated or not. IE, was it hatched and/or bought here in the US? I always thought I had the first two breeding pairs of sulcata in the US back in the late 1970's and sold some of the babies to a couple of reptile dealers in the early 1980's. If you know for a fact that your tortoise is 48 years old, that would indicate a hatch date in 1972 which would predate my breeding pairs by a few years, so I am curious if you know its exact origins.

Thanks for any info.

 

[Tom]

..so I am curious if you know its exact origins.

Me too.

 

[Tom]

Alfred has developed a huge underbite if you will, on his lower jaw. His upper jaw is kind of curving out on the sides. I believe this may be from lawn living, and not having rocks or concrete to eat off of and keep his beak trimmed, but I'm not sure. Is this a health problem that needs medication? This happened a while back and it eventually fell off. Any advice or info would be appreciated.

I helped some friends with a similar case a few years ago. There used to be pics of it here on the forum, but those are gone now.

I set the behemoth on an inverted 5 gallon bucket to keep him still. I cut of the excess portion sticking out with diagonal pliers, and then shaped the protruding lower jaw area with a Dremel tool. It worked well. One follow up dremmeling and his beak was returned to normal after that.

 

[Yvonne G]

I don't know why, but SOME sulcatas grow that extension of keratin on their lower beak. It can be clipped off with nail clippers. Over the years I've seen four big male sulcatas that had this. It's really not the actual lower beak, but just a thin extension of keratin. And is easily clipped off. But it grows back and will continue to need to be clipped throughout his life.