Tortoise Scutes 🐢 Are they pyramiding?

[Dbrosnan09]

Just wanted to get your expert opinions on this, Our Family Tortoise, Jackson Taylor - is now nearly 3 and a half years old.

I’m slightly concerned if his growth is normal. Are his scutes pyramiding? Or, is he looking normal for a Hermann Tortoise.

Please, let us know and enjoy the pictures of him on his afternoon forage

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

I think I see some pyramiding. What do you think @wellington @Tom ?

 

[Tom]

Just wanted to get your expert opinions on this, Our Family Tortoise, Jackson Taylor - is now nearly 3 and a half years old.

I’m slightly concerned if his growth is normal. Are his scutes pyramiding? Or, is he looking normal for a Hermann Tortoise.

Please, let us know and enjoy the pictures of him on his afternoon forage

There is some pyramiding on the vertebral scutes, but not much on the costals. This would indicate a few possibilities:
1. Wrong type of heat lamp. Using MVBs, halogens or spot bulbs could cause this.
2. Having ambient temperatures too low, like in an open topped enclosure, which would make the tortoise bask under a desiccating electric heat lamp excessively.
3. MBD from a lack of calcium, lack of D3, or incorrect diet.

So share with us how your tortoise has been living for the last few years. Open table? Mercury vapor, all-in-one, type bulb? What do you feed him? What is your calcium supplementation routine? What is your UV source?

 

[Dbrosnan09]

Honestly. Thank you for your response. Any suggestions of how we can improve his life, please let us know.

Weirdly, the last few weeks, when breathing he’s started a wheezing style noise.

The image I have provided shows the heat lamp, substrate and conditions he’s living in. Please fire suggestions of what we need, or to completely start again, as the last thing we’d want to do would be to hurt him without knowing. It’s a glass closed enclosure.

His Temperature is controlled. We usually get under his lamps end to around 30 degrees. The other end under his cave 20.

We do feed him the odd strawberry treat like tonight or pepper. However, it is usually Wild Rocket from a supermarket usually. In terms of a calcium routine, we do not have one, we stopped this after 18 months on the shops advice.

In terms of UV. We simply have the light.

Thank you in advance for any advice! Honestly do appreciate it.

 

[Tom]

Honestly. Thank you for your response. Any suggestions of how we can improve his life, please let us know.

Weirdly, the last few weeks, when breathing he’s started a wheezing style noise.

The image I have provided shows the heat lamp, substrate and conditions he’s living in. Please fire suggestions of what we need, or to completely start again, as the last thing we’d want to do would be to hurt him without knowing. It’s a glass closed enclosure.

His Temperature is controlled. We usually get under his lamps end to around 30 degrees. The other end under his cave 20.

We do feed him the odd strawberry treat like tonight or pepper. However, it is usually Wild Rocket from a supermarket usually. In terms of a calcium routine, we do not have one, we stopped this after 18 months on the shops advice.

In terms of UV. We simply have the light.

Thank you in advance for any advice! Honestly do appreciate it.

All the correct care info is here in this thread. Read through it at least a couple of times, and things will begin to make much more sense. Questions are welcome:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

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[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Hello and welcome!!
There does appear to be a bit of pyramiding and a few things off with the set up, but not to fear! Easily sorted!
As much as it’s encouraged to have tortoises in a safe outdoor enclosure, I understand being from the uk myself, that our climate makes it difficult to house outdoors full time, an outdoor enclosure is great for them to enjoy in summer though! I would generally discourage free roaming outside of a safe enclosure.
Care advice for these guys is painfully behind, fb pages, YouTube, pet stores, they’re all repeating the same outdated advice, this forum is made of people who have spent years finding the best ways to care for them that actually result in healthy tortoise.

As adults they need a minimum of an 8x4 enclosure, roaming is vital to tortoise health, it aids digestion and strengthen their muscles.
Don’t think they can get away with smaller if allowed to free roam, I’d highly discourage indoor free roams, being away from their heat source means they’re being exposed to temperatures that are too low quite often, smooth surfaces like laminate flooring will wreak absolute havoc on their hip joints over time.
There’s just numerous reasons it isn’t a good idea unfortunately, harmful floor cleaners, foreign objects being swallowed, getting stuck under things they shouldn’t like shelving or sofas, low temperatures, no uv, getting hit by doors, one member has mentioned they knew someone who’s tort got their head crushed in a door jam, flipping hazards, smooth services, the list goes on and is endless.
They feel most comfortable and safe in a space that best mimics their natural environment, so an appropriate sized enclosure is always the ultimate goal, hopefully we can help

I’m going to include some information below on an example of an appropriate indoor set up, it includes the correct levels and equipment etc, including the appropriate indoor uv, you may know/have some of it already, but I cover all basis for any new members reading the threads, hopefully you find the information useful!

Basking light should be an incandescent floodlight(example attached) on a 12 hour timer.

Basking temperature directly under the floodlight should be 95-100f, you basking temp sounds a bit low? The rest of the enclosure should be ranging 75-80 during the day.

You may also wish to add ambient lighting on the same timer, providing shady areas with hides and safe plants.

Then CHE/CHE’s(ceramic heat emitters) always on a thermostat, for night heat if your house drops below 60’s at night. Set the thermostat for a night temperature place the probe in their cooler end, plug the che into it and the thermostat into the mains, it’ll be plugged in 24/7 but will only turn on when the temperature drops. We’re a cooler climate so I think you’ll most likely need these.

Large wide domes will help project the heat down, just don’t rely on the clamps that come with them, always hang securely.

Indoor Uv should be a t5 fluorescent tube, avoid the compact and coil uv bulbs, they don’t give out enough uv and can hurt the tortoises eyes. The uv can be on a 4 hour timer from noon. I’ve attached examples of the two brands to go for and some examples of how to mount them. I’d personally go with Arcadia as it comes with the reflector fitting

With lighting always avoid anything labelled halogen or mercury vapour.

For substrates, either coco coir, dampened and packed down by hand as a base, with a layer of orchid(fir not pine) bark or forest floor on top, or just the orchid bark/forest floor. Never use anything with sand mixed in, no top soils and no kinds of moss. The problem with top soil is unless you’ve composted it yourself, you don’t know what kind of plants have gone into it, it could be something toxic. Sand can irritate the eyes and be an impaction risk, moss is an impaction risk too.

You want to aim to have the bottom layer of substrate damp, to do this pour lukewarm water into the corners, not loads but enough to dampen the entire bottom layer. To stop that top layer getting a little too dry/dusty, mix the substrate now n then. Check your monitors and substrate to do the pours as and when needed.

I’d personally recommend you make your own base to go as big as you possibly can for the space you have. The closer you can get to an 8x4 size the better.

When making your base, just make sure the material is safe, some use flower beds, or take a large bookcase, take out the shelves and lie flat, or just make their own, for all these options I’d line with cheap pond liner to protect the base, making sure the liner goes up the sides too and make sure those sides are deep enough! They can be professional escape artists

I’ve also included examples of stands people make/buy to hang their lighting, use a temperature gun to determine how high the basking bulb needs to be, the uv I suggested needs to be mounted 18-20 inches from the top of the torts shell.

For a water dish a shallow terracotta saucer sitting flush with the substrate is considered safest, they have grip in the event your tortoise flips themselves, most pet store options are a known hazard.

I’d also always recommend getting your hands on a temp gun, they’re SO handy when setting up a new environment or for checking your monitors are correct

For the diet side of things, I’d personally avoid the fruit and peppers, the odd occasion won’t necessarily hurt, but they aren’t really built to digest them properly. You want to stick with leafy greens and weeds for these guys, they’ll need a lot more variety than just rocket, perhaps you’ll find this link below useful, in the wildflower section there’s so many plants that grow perfectly in our climate! Perhaps you could get some seeds offline and plant into organic soil(no fertilisers or chemicals) in a planter the tortoise doesn’t have access to, forage them as they growbe very wary foraging elsewhere, you can’t be sure there’s no chemicals and they’re toxic lookalikes so always double check.

The Tortoise Table - Home

The Tortoise Table plant database and resource site for Tortoise owners

www.thetortoisetable.org.uk

Hopefully you find this useful in inspiring an idea for an indoor upgrade! Any further questions please do ask away

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

Improvements to your enclosure:

• Change the water dish to a terracotta saucer large enough for the whole tortoise to fit in
• Change the combo bulb to separate heat and UV bulbs (@Littleredfootbigredheart has some good suggestions). The combo bulb is definitely one reason for pyramiding.
• For adult tortoises I would still provide some calcium. One way to do this is offer a cuttle bone for them to nibble on when they feel like it.
• It does look like he has outgrown that enclosure. I would go with the minimum size of 4 by 8 feet suggested for adults or larger straight away.

Questions:

• What is your humidity? If you don't have a meter for humidity, you should get one of the digital ones.