Ulcers on pads of feet

[Linzbragg]

I'm starting this tread bc of a comment made about a pic put up by pga7602. I never planned on having my boy have any cement that he would walk around on daily, but why does cement make that happen, and can they be caused by other things?

 

[dmarcus]

I can only go by what I have observed with my sulcata.. I will try to exlain it as I have watched him do it.

He does not like to go backwards, so when he gets himself in a spot where he can't go any further and there is only a few inches of space on either sie of him, he does a sort of pivot where one of his rear legs sorta stays in place while he works his way to the right or left until he gets turned around. It does not look like fun and the feet slide as he is doing it. Now on grass or dirt its no big issue but I am sure if he was doing this on concrete or cement the pads on his feet would look bad.

Hope I explained it well enough..

 

[ascott]

I read that comment as well, (kinda like a kennel bound dog can get kennel feet---which is too much constant contact with concrete on the pads of their feet and mix in with that use of water to clean kennels and that is what you can encounter).....however, a tortoise paces ALOT as part of their days routine...if your tort has developed a pacing route in their yard and that route includes constant contact with concrete with their feet they can get what starts as wear marks and then that can develop into an ulceration of the pads due to their protective layers being worn down....cure--watch where your tort paces and remove the concrete and/or lay something on top of the concrete portion of their path and that should eventually allow some healing...

 

[Yvonne G]

Another thing, adding to what dmarcus said, they don't back up. If they encounter something in their way, they push ahead, trying to push the object out of their way. If its pretty much an immovable object, it may cause the feet to slide, causing "road burn" on the bottoms of the feet. It can also happen on very hard dirt...doesn't necessarily have to be concrete.

Then, when they start to settle in for the night, even if they're not in a burrow, they have to do some rearranging in the "burrow" for a while. They dig and dig and dig and then they push what they've dug backward with the back feet. So if he's in a dog house, with a floor, the digging and pushing will also cause road burn.