pyramiding and humidity

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todd and his tortoise

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i have heard alot of concern about pyramiding and have seen a few posts about it. is this something that is harmful to a sulcata? i understand soaking,humidity and calcium are important rituals to prevent this from hapening but will pyramiding hurt them? i understand the 1st year or so of a young tortoises life it is underground in a damp environment. how long should i keep up the high humidity in the cage? should i cut back on the percentage of humidity after a year? should i cut back on the daily soakings? please let me know. sheldon is about 6 months old and just want to give him the best possible care. thanks...todd :tort:
 

wellington

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Keep,it up until 1 year. Then after that the soakings can be cut back if you want to every other day. Humidity still stays the same. The pyramiding within itself will not hurt them It's just not what they are suppose to look like. What cause pyramiding is what can hurt them.
 

argus333

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how ofteh to soak 2.5 yr old? i do it twice a week. i worry about infections with all that soaking..


fungal and bacterial infections with all that soaking...
 

Yvonne G

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The soaking thing and keeping a baby in a humid environment is only good for during their first year of life. At 2 and a half years, whatever pyramiding is going to happen is already established. I continue to soak at least weekly until the tortoise is too big for me to handle. Then I keep a large waterer in the pen that the tortoise can climb into on his own.
 

Tom

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Dehydration causes pyramiding. Dehydration is bad for a tortoise, but survivable in most cases. Unless it is very severe or coupled with Metabolic Bone Disease, pyramiding is not harmful to a tortoise, but it is a good indicator of improper husbandry. Don't take that as an insult. I did it improperly myself for around 17 years. All the books and most of the Internet sites STILL recommend the wrong stuff and offer incorrect info about what babies need. NO ONE in the whole world knows what babies do, what they eat or where they go. What we do know is that they hatch at the start of the rainy season when it's hot, wet , humid and green food is growing everywhere. They disappear and are usually not seen again until they are around 10-12". Nobody, including me, or the people who live in sulcata territory and study them, know what babies do or how or where they spend their time. What we are left with is what we observe in captivity. My hatchlings avoid any sort of hole in the ground as if their life depends on it. And they do not dig their own burrows until they are larger. What animals might dig a burrow in Africa? In most cases a tiny baby sulcata does not want to encounter one of those animals.


The time to cut back on the humidity and soaking is based on size, not age. They all grow at different rates, so it's impossible to offer a time frame that works. If you can grow them smooth to 8", you are out of the woods and they will not start to pyramid after that in my experience. I start skipping an occasional soak day once they hit 4". As they grow, I skip more and more days. I would keep the humidity up and always offer a humid hide until they are at least 8".

Argus, sulcatas are NOT prone to shell rot or fungal infections. The area where they come from in the wild is marshy for 3-4 months of the year. We have photos posted here of wild tortoises to prove it. Here in captivity, I have been keeping mine on damp substrate in very humid conditions since 2008. Not a single case of shell rot from babies to juveniles.

kjr, it is not reversible, but it can be stopped and the new growth will gradually come out smoother. This takes great effort and a long time, but it can be done.
 

surie_the_tortoise

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i have a 14 inch female that is far from perfect but has gotten a lot better during the year in my care. she gets showers and soak time 3 to 5 times a week . she seems to love the shower and has been growing smoother. as tom has said if grown smooth from a baby to that 8 inch range then wouldnt have to do the soaks as much as i have been. Also wouldnt see the harm in it if they enjoy that time
 

Tom

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surie_the_tortoise said:
i have a 14 inch female that is far from perfect but has gotten a lot better during the year in my care. she gets showers and soak time 3 to 5 times a week . she seems to love the shower and has been growing smoother. as tom has said if grown smooth from a baby to that 8 inch range then wouldnt have to do the soaks as much as i have been. Also wouldnt see the harm in it if they enjoy that time

You bring up a good point. How much of the wet routine do they "need"? Seems everybody wants to know the minimum, but as you've seen, more doesn't hurt anything.
 

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Tom said:
You bring up a good point. How much of the wet routine do they "need"? Seems everybody wants to know the minimum, but as you've seen, more doesn't hurt anything.

Devils advocate here; I've read on the Internet machine that soaking alot stimulates the tortoises to dedicate in the water and that this daily dedicating is bad because it doesn't allow the tortoise to absorb nutrition from their food because its not in their gut long enough for that to happen. Also I read they don't soak in the wilds. Is this really not true? It referenced something from 1986 and the guy who wrote it was a scientist.
 

argus333

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i go by what ever ac highfield says, read his articles on this. i do not soak at all!!! my 2 yr old sulcata is smooth his burrow is always @ 30 to 40% humidity only... he has low protein diet. 1.5 yr old same thing perfect shell. if u really want to blow your mind look at this http://ojaisulcataproject.org/pyramiding.html
 

nearpass

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argus333 said:
i go by what ever ac highfield says, read his articles on this. i do not soak at all!!! my 2 yr old sulcata is smooth his burrow is always @ 30 to 40% humidity only... he has low protein diet. 1.5 yr old same thing perfect shell. if u really want to blow your mind look at this http://ojaisulcataproject.org/pyramiding.html

Wow! I read every page on the website you linked too. Very interesting, and a quite different perspective than what is often presented here, yet they seem to have great success. A lot of food for thought, and, too me, makes clear that there are many avenues to success in keeping tortoises, that there's still a lot of trial and error no matter what we think, and that there's a lot to learn out there! Thanks for the link.
 

SmileyKylie623

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My Sulcata was practically ignored after he wasn't tiny and cute by his previous owners. He has some pyramiding going on- I think. It's just bumpy/not completely smooth. Fortunately since I got him it doesn't appear to have gotten worse and he has grown almost 2 inches in the time that I have had him. I usually soak him 2 times a week and spray down parts of his enclosure once a day. Not sure if that plays a role.. ANything I should change to keep it from getting worse? He gets calcium supplements on his food 2-3 times a week as well.
 

Tom

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Cowboy_Ken said:
Devils advocate here; I've read on the Internet machine that soaking alot stimulates the tortoises to dedicate in the water and that this daily dedicating is bad because it doesn't allow the tortoise to absorb nutrition from their food because its not in their gut long enough for that to happen. Also I read they don't soak in the wilds. Is this really not true? It referenced something from 1986 and the guy who wrote it was a scientist.

I've heard that myth about too much soaking many times too. Someone is going to have to explain to me why mine grow so much faster than average on a handful of weeds and grass a day when I soak them daily. If it were true, and mine were not getting enough nutrients absorbed because of daily soaks and daily defecation, wouldn't mine grow slower than average? I'm not talking about one or two tortoises, I'm talking about 100's. Somebody will have to explain it to Dean too. His young tortoises live in water for hours a day.

Speaking of Dean, he just did a post about a week ago showing a pic that he got from our friend Tomas Diagne of the African Chelonian Institute. The pic is of a large sulcata emerging from a marsh covered in mud and water. There is also a pic in the "Crying Tortoise" book showing something similar. So yes, they do soak themselves in the wild during the rainy season.


argus333 said:
i go by what ever ac highfield says, read his articles on this. i do not soak at all!!! my 2 yr old sulcata is smooth his burrow is always @ 30 to 40% humidity only... he has low protein diet. 1.5 yr old same thing perfect shell. if u really want to blow your mind look at this http://ojaisulcataproject.org/pyramiding.html

Andy Highfield's info is based on Testudo sp. He does not raise sulcatas or leopards to my knowledge, and so far no one has shown me a pic of a smooth sulcata or leopard that he has raised from a hatchling using the methods he promotes for Greek tortoises. Further, he once posted a ranting tirade against the "myth" of humidity that was full of all sorts of colorful language and insults. A couple of years after that and after some discussions with Ed Pirog, who is a tortoise book author and former member here, he recanted all of it, and a whole lot of other stuff too.

Dave Friend is the founder of the Ojai Sulcata Project. Same story as Andy, but without the insults. Dave is a friend, a good man, and an excellent human being. I like and respect him tremendously. Dave and I have had many conversations about this subject. He has told me of conversations he's had with other tortoise keepers too. He typed up the info on his site years ago, and has since reconsidered at least some of it based on things he has seen and learned since he wrote it. Dave is having some health issues right now, or I bet a lot of that would already be re-written. I wish him a speedy recovery and a return to perfect health.

There is certainly more than one way to do this stuff, but I have done enough of it over so many years that I can usually predict the results a person will get with a hatchling sulcata or leopard based on how they keep it. Certain trends are pretty universal. Keep them warm and humid and soak them regularly and they will grow smooth and fast. Keep them dry, under hot bulbs, don't soak them or give them a humid hide and they tend to grow slow and lumpy. And the protein thing is another persistent myth. I've seen sulcatas raised on daily cat food that are totally smooth. They were raised outdoors in South FL. My adults were raised on small quantities of grass and weeds, no protein at all, and still pyramided significantly and grew very slowly, here in the CA desert. Saw two tortoises the same age raised in New Orleans. One was raised outdoors, the other was raised in a reptile shop under a hot bulb on rabbit pellets. The outdoor one was smooth as a wild caught and the indoor one was half his size and very pyramided. There are also dozens of examples on this site of tortoises raised numerous ways that demonstrate these principles. Do I need to say more?
 

Cowboy_Ken

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Tom, thank you for responding so clear and, as usual, intelligently. And yes, to my knowledge Andy does not have experience raising Sulcatas, or leopard tortoises.
 
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