Size difference

[Tinkerbell]

My hermann (Charlie) is 4 months old and weighs 52 grams. My sister got one today app the same age but is less than half the size. See photos and you can see the difference.
Which one do you think
Looks the right size for the age.

 

[Tom]

There are many factors that determine growth rate. Temps, humidity and hydration, and diet are all big factors.

 

[Tinkerbell]

Thanks Tom. Just hope I'm doing everything right and he's not growing too fast.

 

[THBfriend]

I do think that 52g for a four-months-old is quite a lot and that your sister's tortoise looks better for that age (apart from the anomalous fourth vertebral scute).

I've been told that as a rule of thumb, these tortoises should about double their weight over the first year and then gain an additional 50% in each following year. That's probably on the lower end, though. I guess most people's Hermanns will be heavier. Mine weigh around 11-14g when hatching, meaning that following this rule and rounding up, they should be about 30g after one year, 50g after two years, 80g after three years and so on. In reality, it has been more like 40g, 80g and 120g for mine after 1, 2 and 3 years respectively.

Young tortoises certainly want to and will grow fast when you feed them a lot. After all they are quite vulnerable initially until their shell has reached a certain size and has hardened. Overly fast growth is supposedly bad as it can lead to health problems and pyramiding. The question is, what is too fast? I don't know.

 

[Tinkerbell]

Thanks for the great advise. Maybe I should cut down on the food I give him and slow his growth down. What's the matter with my sisters 4th scute. Still new to all this and really appreciate good advise.

 

[Tom]

"Slow growth" is one of the old tortoise myths that just refuses to die. Just like "they get all their water from their food", or tortoises are "desert" animals, or "protein causes pyramiding".

Rather than starve them to slow them down (which I know form personal experience doesn't work to prevent pyramiding anyway), or "power feeding" them to speed them up, I think we ought to be striving for the good, healthy, correct growth that comes from proper diet, UV exposure, exercise, hydration and enclosure parameters, and NOT worry at all about the speed at which they grow. Rather than try to achieve some arbitrary rate of growth, I think we ought be trying to provide the best of all possible worlds for them and not worry about how fast they grow.

In all my groups of all my species, they all grow at different rates. Even when hatched at the same time and raised completely the same in every way in the same enclosure, they all grow at different rates. I find that my fastest growers tend to be the healthiest, smoothest, least afraid, and tend to have the biggest appetites. The biggest, fastest growers are also the ones who are first to the food and eat the most. Now I am in the process of trying to figure out WHY some seem to show more appetite than others. Faster growth is obviously related to bigger appetite and larger food intake. So why do two tortoises raised exactly the same have such widely different appetites?

In my group of hatchling russians some are hardly growing at all, while others in the same enclosure are growing at relatively fast rates. They are all in the same enclosure and eating the same foods. It should be no surprise that the ones that come running as soon as they see me, and start chowing down as soon as the food hits the bowl, are the faster growers. The ones that hang back and wait are obviously eating less and therefore growing more slowly. ALL of them are growing smoothly.

Same story in all my other species. My question is WHY do some come running at me with no fear, while some just seem more timid, or have less appetite. In my bigger sulcatas, some will just sit there and eat and eat and eat, while others just nibble and then move on. Guess which ones are bigger and have a faster growth rate? What may come as a surprise to some is that the bigger faster growers are also more active (exercise), and they are also noticeably smoother.

 

[Tinkerbell]

Thanks Tom. Mine loves his food and is very active and still very smooth. He's such a little character, always on the go looking for trouble.

 

[THBfriend]

"Slow growth" is one of the old tortoise myths that just refuses to die.

Pretty much every book and care sheet that I've ever seen preaches slow growth. Got any sources that it's a myth other than your personal experience? You don't have to starve tortoises to keep their growth in check, the proper husbandry (high-fiber diet, excercise and other parameters you mentioned) should do that automatically. It's true that different tortoises develop at different speeds and their weights can diverge more and more over the years. But we were talking about four-month-old hatchlings here.

 

[mike taylor]

A tortoise in the wild will walk ,eat ,poop,walk eat sleep ,hide from predators . In the wild foods is unlimited in spring. Then they hide away and sleep the winter away . So I have to go with Tom here . You as a keeper will give them something to graze on and let them grow . The key is room to walk and graze ,a place to hide ,and a place to take a dip or a drink . These guys spend endless time eating.