Russian growth rate

[EE torts]

my russian tortoise is 16 grams and 1.5 inches is this und weight or over weight or good weight?

 

[katieandiggy]

my russian tortoise is 16 grams and 1.5 inches is this und weight or over weight or good weight?

16grams is very small. How old do you know?

 

[EE torts]

basically 2 months

 

[katieandiggy]

I think it’s small but weight is dependant on a lot of things. Are you weighing weekly and seeing small weight gains?
What are you feeding? What is your enclosure like? Some pictures would be good.

 

[Yvonne G]

I'm old and don't know from grams. . . but Russian tortoises are a very small species, and Russian tortoise babies are very small. Just feed him a good diet and set up his habitat correctly and you shouldn't have any worries. You can also make a tracing of his shell on a piece of paper about once a month to track his growth. Place him on a piece of paper then trace around the outer edge with a pencil. Use the same paper each time and you can watch him grow.

 

[EE torts]

I think it’s small but weight is dependant on a lot of things. Are you weighing weekly and seeing small weight gains?
What are you feeding? What is your enclosure like? Some pictures would be good.

yes weakly, he used to gain a lot of weight at one time one ounce per day he used to be 18g but now he's 16 the thing is when i weighed him last it keeps switching between 18 and 16. he eats dandelion leaves and flowers, clovers, collard greens, radicchio, arugula, and zoomed dried flowers for tortoises basically just dried flowers.

 

[EE torts]

I'm old and don't know from grams. . . but Russian tortoises are a very small species, and Russian tortoise babies are very small. Just feed him a good diet and set up his habitat correctly and you shouldn't have any worries. You can also make a tracing of his shell on a piece of paper about once a month to track his growth. Place him on a piece of paper then trace around the outer edge with a pencil. Use the same paper each time and you can watch him grow.

yes i already do the growth thing

 

[katieandiggy]

Well that’s a great start and sounds like your doing things right. When my Russian got to 50g he hovered around that weight for weeks. He would be 52g then 48g and I worried for a while.
Do you soak daily?
Eventually mine started to put on weight slowly, he’s now 90g. But it’s taken 5 months to put on 40g.

 

[EE torts]

Well that’s a great start and sounds like your doing things right. When my Russian got to 50g he hovered around that weight for weeks. He would be 52g then 48g and I worried for a while.
Do you soak daily?
Eventually mine started to put on weight slowly, he’s now 90g. But it’s taken 5 months to put on 40g.

yes daily soak, thanks so much