Please help ! Contradictory information

[jodemiah]

Hi everyone.
My two-year-old Hermanns (sex TBD) currently weighs just over 600 grams and is approximately 120 mm long. I sent pictures to her breeder who voiced several concerns.

1) She thinks that she is growing too fast. Do you think she weighs too much?

2) She thinks that she is pyramiding from too much protein (which is not the case since I only feed her a diet of a variety of greens including dandelion leaves, grasses, lettuce, chickweed, etc). I also dust her greens with powdered cuttlebone once a week and she has her hard cuttlebone in her enclosure.

Please let me know your thoughts. I welcome any advice that will help me take better care of my tort.

 

[Yvonne G]

The breeder you are conversing with is thinking in the old way. We no longer feel that diet causes pyramiding. It is mostly attributed to living in a dry environment.

If you will read the care sheet we have pinned at the top of our Hermanni section, and change the way you care for your tortoise according to that care sheet, you will no longer have to worry about conflicting information. Chris, the author of that care sheet, is one of the top breeders of Hermanni. He knows his stuff and you can trust he's giving you the best information.

 

[Tom]

Protein and diet do not cause pyramiding. That old, out-dated, incorrect theory was debunked more than 10 years ago, but many people have just not kept up with advancing tortoise knowledge.

Read these for proper care info:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/beginner-mistakes.45180/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/sticky-hermanns-tortoise-care-sheet-updated.101410/

This one was written for Russians, but care is essentially the same:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/russian-tortoise-care-sheet.80698/

 

[THBfriend]

Both of you answered question #2. But what about #1?

A two-year-old Hermann's tortoise that weighs 616g? Seems abnormally large to me. Mine are around 100g, usually just below that. But then, once they've reached the age of 24 months, mine have spent more than a third of their lives on ice (two hibernation/brumation periods for a total of 8-9 months).