Our Aldabras, Bigfoot, Littlefoot and Meatball

dd33

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We've had our three Aldabras for three years now. We don't know their hatch dates but we estimate they hatched at the beginning of 2018 making them nearly 4 years old now.

9/28/2018 Weights
Bigfoot - 558g
Littlefoot - 382g
Meatball - 378g

9/26/2021 Weights
Bigfoot - 26.3kg
Littlefoot - 24.4kg
Meatball - 20.8kg

We are pretty happy with how they are turning out. They seem to have very stout and strong legs that appear to be in proportion to the rest of their body. The shell shapes are pretty good. Meatball (red dot) has a perfect shell but it has some scars on the plastron from fungus when it was very young. Littlefoot (yellow dot) has a nearly perfect shell. Bigfoot (blue dot) has a little bit of pyramiding but its only noticeable from certain angles.

They are always hungry but they still haven't learned to associate us with food and basically terrified of us. We are still waiting for the day they warm up to us.


I took a few new photos today after the weigh in.
aldabra1.jpgaldabra2.jpgaldabra3.jpgaldabra4.jpgaldabra5.jpgaldabra6.jpgaldabra7.jpgaldabra8.jpgaldabra-bigfoot.jpgaldabra-littlefoot.jpgaldabra-meatball.jpg
 

TammyJ

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I adore them and they are obviously well cared! Splendid.
 

Cameron

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Great looking tortoises. I have one about the same size and have been debating on getting a buddy for him. Seeing you with three of them is making me think harder about this...lol
 

dd33

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Great looking tortoises. I have one about the same size and have been debating on getting a buddy for him. Seeing you with three of them is making me think harder about this...lol
Thanks! They don't seem to interact with one another much. The only time they really seem to react to one another is when its Mazuri day. Then its a rush to the feeding plate while they all try to climb on top of the food pile and hiss at each other.
 

dd33

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Our tortoises have had us a bit worried this week. Last Sunday they had a larger than normal feeding of Mazuri LS. For the remainder of the week they mostly stayed in their house. They wouldn't come out for hibiscus leaves or even more Mazuri which is very unusual. They weren't lethargic and they would put up a real fight when I tried to take them out of the house.
My first thought was to bump up the temperature in their house. Thats when I discovered that the thermostat that controlled the oil filled radiator had failed and the house was only being heated by the two Kane mats on the second thermostat. The house hadn't gotten below 82 degrees so the alarm hadn't gone off but it has been 3-4 degrees cooler than normal recently.
I decided to give them a soak to see if I could get them pooping to make sure everything was still moving along inside. They seem to be feeling better after the soak. Two stormed back into their house but one stayed out and ate a ton of hibiscus leaves.

2021-10-15-17.50.32.jpg
 

dd33

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Over the weekend I had a chance to weigh these guys for the first time in two months. Despite a few weeks of reduced appetite in October they still managed to grow quite a bit.
Bigfoot went from - 26.3 to 29.9kg
Littlefoot went from - 24.4 to 27.1kg
Meatball went from - 20.8 to 24.5kg

I would have never thought that a ~4 year old tortoise could weigh 65lbs!

aldabra11-29-21.jpg
 

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