South African Leopard Tortoises - wet or dry???

[Tom]

Bro i know this is an old thread but they will ******* peg you to the cross for trying to raise your tortoise the same way they live in the wild. They keep talking about 3 months of monsoon but isnt that worse than keeping a humidity level at 30% everyday and a couple misting? Theyll have more humidity 365 days a year rather than the monsoon they keep talking about that only happens in 3 months. Yeah they hide in burrows but that doesnt mean its 80% humidity there. I fully support you and they really for some reason dont agree with kenan, when hes been a successful breeder, raise capitivity and one of the main heads of the tortoise movement. I honestly feel like they get so mad when you dont raise them the way they raise theirs. Im new with tortoise keeping but i get so weirded out, they want to raise a tortoise the opposite of their natural environment? How is their environment bad when they have survived millions of years. They want you to keep them indoors and humid like that happens to the babies in aftica. Im happy someone else thinks differently, keep it up.

Bro, This post is so full of wrong, I don't know where to begin.

• We don't nail people to crosses. We try to keep them from making ignorance based mistakes. But some people, like you, can't be reached and choose to remain ignorant and continue making the mistakes that we also made back when we were ignorant.
• No one knows how they live in the wild. Our best guesses and attempt to duplicate it fail, and have failed for decades.
• When people attempt to duplicate "the wild" in captive environments based on what we think we know, the tortoises pyramid horribly. Try it your way. You'll see. Ask yourself: How does Tom know what will happen if I raise my tortoise according to the way I think they live in the wild? Do it that way and post your results here. Prove me wrong. That is what happened when we started arguing about this years ago when I first joined this forum. Most of the people were saying the same thing that you are saying now. I argued constantly. Then, I had a better idea. Put up or shut up. I made a thread and posted my results, and challenged my adversaries to do the same. Even offered to send them free babies to conduct the experiment with. I put up and they shut up. Can't argue with living breathing proof. See it here: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/the-end-of-pyramiding.15137/
• You don't know what your talking about because you are new to tortoises and you've been reading all the old incorrect info. The same out-dated incorrect info that we are trying to eradicate. We've advanced. We've done experiments, had discussions, and proven theory after theory. You still think the world is flat, and no one can convince you otherwise.
• Kenan is not a "main head of the tortoise movement". Hardly. He's new and enthusiastic. He's a student of the "heads of the tortoise movement" and says so publicly. He has a good production and editing team and he makes great videos. This does not mean he has more experience or has done more experimentation than the real pioneers of the "tortoise movement". Again, this demonstrates your naivety and ignorance, yet you slap away the hands that try to help you learn.
• Another note about the wild and how they've survived millions of years… Our captive environments in a foreign country and temperate climate are NOT the same as the wild, and they cannot be. Even people who live in the native environment of a given species have to take steps to modify the captive environment to make it suitable and survivable. Ask my friend Tomas Diagne what he had to do to keep sulcata babies healthy in Senegal before he could raise them up and release them back into the wild. Ask all the people here in Southern CA about what they have to do for their DTs. Somewhere between 300-1000 baby tortoises die in the wild for everyone that survives to adulthood. That's a survival rate of 0.003% at best. My best guess at survival rates for CB sulcatas here in the US is around 50% on average, and sometimes far worse. Yet me, and people who do it similar to how I do it, have survival rates of 100%. Yep, you are right. We must all be doing it wrong. I should watch some videos from an extreme sports guy/internet sensation newcomer to the reptile scene, and educate myself so that I can have survival rates more like everyone else.

No thank you.

And this is a family friendly forum. There are children reading these posts. Profanity is not appropriate or allowed.

 

[SteveW]

Bro i know this is an old thread but they will ******* peg you to the cross for trying to raise your tortoise the same way they live in the wild. They keep talking about 3 months of monsoon but isnt that worse than keeping a humidity level at 30% everyday and a couple misting? Theyll have more humidity 365 days a year rather than the monsoon they keep talking about that only happens in 3 months. Yeah they hide in burrows but that doesnt mean its 80% humidity there. I fully support you and they really for some reason dont agree with kenan, when hes been a successful breeder, raise capitivity and one of the main heads of the tortoise movement. I honestly feel like they get so mad when you dont raise them the way they raise theirs. Im new with tortoise keeping but i get so weirded out, they want to raise a tortoise the opposite of their natural environment? How is their environment bad when they have survived millions of years. They want you to keep them indoors and humid like that happens to the babies in aftica. Im happy someone else thinks differently, keep it up.

Well there's of course no real way to argue with the inarticulate and profane, so I won't. I will point out that the survival rate of hatchlings in the wild is not something any keeper I know of would find acceptable, whether it's natural or not.

 

[Tom]

Well there's of course no real way to argue with the inarticulate and profane....

Does this mean my attempt at arguing with an inarticulate and profane post is a failure? I tried so hard...

 

[SteveW]

Does this mean my attempt at arguing with an inarticulate and profane post is a failure? I tried so hard...

Stay tuned. The success of your efforts vs my cynicism is pending his response.

 

[Ramsey]

I smell bait....

Or maybe it's this guy

 

[Fl@sh]

Hi guys, can i kindly ask that you delete my account ans stop sending me mails. Or explain how i may delete my account thank you. You certainly wouldnt want to infringe on my Electronic Communication and Transaction rights, lets not go down that road . Thank you again .

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

http://www.fallingrain.com/world/index.html is an accurate climate data warehouse.

The major growing is done during the wet season when the stuff they eat is available and growing, that's why they have growth rings. Starts and stops on growth, associated with when it's the wet season. Small tortoises use refugia that has a higher relative RH, than where most climate stations are placed, about a meter off the ground. The micro-climate of where the tortoises spend time is a bit different than what is recorded in most weather stations.

Between when they eat and where they spend their time, as neonates and small adults they live in higher RH when active growth occurs. The scute margin is wet when it's fresh growth. Like many layers of epoxy, the micro-pyramid, hence the growth ring.

In captivity when we don't turn the growth cycle off with seasonal reduction in food that micro-pyramiding can run amok in just a few weeks to months. Once that pattern of growth is set into the 'growth habit' it is difficult to alter.

Both manners of managing work. Some folks, myself included, might be a bit obsessed with bowling ball smooth round tortoises. I little growth ring stacking is not so bad. I too have seen wild leo's in a few places in RSA, more Stellenbosch to Beaufort West. Stacked growth rings, but no serious pyramiding.