What's an average weight for a 5 month old Eastern Hermann's? How much do they usually gain every week? I am just a little worried that my Carl is behind the curve
what is an "average" weight?
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Is Carl eating all of his food every day? If so, offer him about 10% more.
If he eats all of that consistently, offer him 10% more.
Is he "pooping" daily, more or less?
Young tortoises grow at their own rates, so it's hard to really give you a specific weight.
How often are you weighing him?
Ptolemy puts on about 25gm/month, on average, while Ophelia and Jennifer add about 55 - 65 gm/month, and Apollonia, somewhere in between, but I'm guessing she's somewhat the youngest.
Carl, being much younger, will add less, overall, right now, but consider what he does add as a %age of his overall weight.
As long as he's eating and pooping, he's growing. At his own rate.
If he eats all of that consistently, offer him 10% more.
Is he "pooping" daily, more or less?
Young tortoises grow at their own rates, so it's hard to really give you a specific weight.
How often are you weighing him?
Ptolemy puts on about 25gm/month, on average, while Ophelia and Jennifer add about 55 - 65 gm/month, and Apollonia, somewhere in between, but I'm guessing she's somewhat the youngest.
Carl, being much younger, will add less, overall, right now, but consider what he does add as a %age of his overall weight.
As long as he's eating and pooping, he's growing. At his own rate.
A lot of factors at play here with husbandry and genetics, so averages can be tricky when we're talking young tortoise weights.
This is a good guideline to follow using the Donoghue formula:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-Tortoise-Weight-Formula-tBMI#axzz25pirCsAJ
This information is also summarized here: http://tortoiselibrary.com/
Recall, this is a guideline, nothing written in stone here, especially for younger tortoises.
This is a good guideline to follow using the Donoghue formula:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-Tortoise-Weight-Formula-tBMI#axzz25pirCsAJ
This information is also summarized here: http://tortoiselibrary.com/
Recall, this is a guideline, nothing written in stone here, especially for younger tortoises.
Terry Allan Hall said:Is Carl eating all of his food every day? If so, offer him about 10% more.
If he eats all of that consistently, offer him 10% more.
Is he "pooping" daily, more or less?
Young tortoises grow at their own rates, so it's hard to really give you a specific weight.
How often are you weighing him?
Ptolemy puts on about 25gm/month, on average, while Ophelia and Jennifer add about 55 - 65 gm/month, and Apollonia, somewhere in between, but I'm guessing she's somewhat the youngest.
Carl, being much younger, will add less, overall, right now, but consider what he does add as a %age of his overall weight.
As long as he's eating and pooping, he's growing. At his own rate.
I weigh him at least once a week, sometimes two. On average he gains about 1.5 grams a week, give or take, gaining 6 grams in the past month.
I assume Carl is pooping regularly, he sometimes poops in his soaks, sometimes it comes out as it's going in and I find it all over his food dish, sometimes I don't find it at all which makes me assume he found it before I did.
I feed him 2, sometimes three times a day. His normal food schedule is five or six medium sized leaves (usually containing dandelion and hibiscus, although I've discovered he likes hosta flowers, too) in the morning, chopped up into a nice salad, and then either another salad in the afternoon or a nice big stonecrop leaf mashed up in with some ZooMed Grassland tortoise diet (only way I can get him to eat it). If he doesn't get his stone crop then, I usually give him a small stonecrop leaf to munch on as a "snack" after I bring him inside at the end of the day. All in all, the two real "meals" are always gone after a couple hours, with maybe a few scraps of the types he doesn't like as much as the others. He also has lots of seedlings outside to chew on so I don't know how much of those he's actually eating.
Wow, I just realized that I typed a novel on Carl's dietary habits. Sorry about that
Redstrike said:
That's really helpful! Thanks! Carl is at .97 but I don't have the greatest of scales to weigh him on at the moment so I always have to consider that I may be a gram or so off in either direction.
futureleopardtortoise said:Terry Allan Hall said:Is Carl eating all of his food every day? If so, offer him about 10% more.
If he eats all of that consistently, offer him 10% more.
Is he "pooping" daily, more or less?
Young tortoises grow at their own rates, so it's hard to really give you a specific weight.
How often are you weighing him?
Ptolemy puts on about 25gm/month, on average, while Ophelia and Jennifer add about 55 - 65 gm/month, and Apollonia, somewhere in between, but I'm guessing she's somewhat the youngest.
Carl, being much younger, will add less, overall, right now, but consider what he does add as a %age of his overall weight.
As long as he's eating and pooping, he's growing. At his own rate.
I weigh him at least once a week, sometimes two. On average he gains about 1.5 grams a week, give or take, gaining 6 grams in the past month.
I assume Carl is pooping regularly, he sometimes poops in his soaks, sometimes it comes out as it's going in and I find it all over his food dish, sometimes I don't find it at all which makes me assume he found it before I did.
I feed him 2, sometimes three times a day. His normal food schedule is five or six medium sized leaves (usually containing dandelion and hibiscus, although I've discovered he likes hosta flowers, too) in the morning, chopped up into a nice salad, and then either another salad in the afternoon or a nice big stonecrop leaf mashed up in with some ZooMed Grassland tortoise diet (only way I can get him to eat it). If he doesn't get his stone crop then, I usually give him a small stonecrop leaf to munch on as a "snack" after I bring him inside at the end of the day. All in all, the two real "meals" are always gone after a couple hours, with maybe a few scraps of the types he doesn't like as much as the others. He also has lots of seedlings outside to chew on so I don't know how much of those he's actually eating.
Wow, I just realized that I typed a novel on Carl's dietary habits. Sorry about that
Not convinced that the ZooMed Grassland tortoise diet is all that great, but it's probably not harmful, no more than Carl is eating of it. How about cactus pads?...lots of good calcium in those, and he'd benefit from getting same 2-3X a week. Plus, torts love 'em
Sounds like Carl is growing great...6 gms/month for such a tiny tort-let is not bad, at all, so try not to worry.
I'm with Terry, 6 grams/month is good for a small, young tortoise. I weigh all 4 of mine on the 4th or 5th of every month after feeding and soaking them. I also get an SCL and calculate their BMI's given the information I provided you above.
Looking at my records, three of my tortoises gained 4-5 grams this month. The slow grower that stacks on fat gained 15 grams, but I haven't been seeing this in scute growth. That individual (Coagi) is going on a diet because its BMI was 1.19!!!
My point is, this is all relative. Yea, I have a slow grower too, but s/he's just fattening up rather than throwing down new growth. The diet consists of mostly weeds (grape, plantain, opuntia cacti pads, wild grape, common mallow, dandelion, etc.), wild flowers, fruit/veggies once a week (redfoots) and protein every 2 weeks or so. Mazuri/Zoo Med is also a once every week or two supplement. This leads me to think that it's probably genetic as the rest of the torts are growing like weeds while Coagi simply fattens up!
Looking at my records, three of my tortoises gained 4-5 grams this month. The slow grower that stacks on fat gained 15 grams, but I haven't been seeing this in scute growth. That individual (Coagi) is going on a diet because its BMI was 1.19!!!
My point is, this is all relative. Yea, I have a slow grower too, but s/he's just fattening up rather than throwing down new growth. The diet consists of mostly weeds (grape, plantain, opuntia cacti pads, wild grape, common mallow, dandelion, etc.), wild flowers, fruit/veggies once a week (redfoots) and protein every 2 weeks or so. Mazuri/Zoo Med is also a once every week or two supplement. This leads me to think that it's probably genetic as the rest of the torts are growing like weeds while Coagi simply fattens up!
Terry Allan Hall said:Not convinced that the ZooMed Grassland tortoise diet is all that great, but it's probably not harmful, no more than Carl is eating of it. How about cactus pads?...lots of good calcium in those, and he'd benefit from getting same 2-3X a week. Plus, torts love 'em
Sounds like Carl is growing great...6 gms/month for such a tiny tort-let is not bad, at all, so try not to worry.
First of all, tort-let is a great word and I will be using it in the future
Second, I give him the zoomed maybe twice a week, I just worry that I might be missing some obscure nutrient that he might get from it. He keeps trying to eat cypress mulch, someone here told me he'd stop after he realized it isn't food but he still does it ALL the time, maybe he needs more fiber?
I have been trying to find cactus pads on my own which is turning out to be incredibly difficult in the middle of Nebraska. I will probably just have to order some online.
Good to know he's on par. I guess I am just used to seeing all these people talk about their sulcata tort-lets
futureleopardtortoise said:Terry Allan Hall said:Not convinced that the ZooMed Grassland tortoise diet is all that great, but it's probably not harmful, no more than Carl is eating of it. How about cactus pads?...lots of good calcium in those, and he'd benefit from getting same 2-3X a week. Plus, torts love 'em
Sounds like Carl is growing great...6 gms/month for such a tiny tort-let is not bad, at all, so try not to worry.
First of all, tort-let is a great word and I will be using it in the future
Second, I give him the zoomed maybe twice a week, I just worry that I might be missing some obscure nutrient that he might get from it. He keeps trying to eat cypress mulch, someone here told me he'd stop after he realized it isn't food but he still does it ALL the time, maybe he needs more fiber?
I have been trying to find cactus pads on my own which is turning out to be incredibly difficult in the middle of Nebraska. I will probably just have to order some online.
Good to know he's on par. I guess I am just used to seeing all these people talk about their sulcata tort-lets
You can almost watch sulcata tort-lets grow, and it's almost scary...
If you order some cactus online, cut the top 3rd off each pad and plant them...they're easy to grow in large planters, and soon you'll have enough to feed Carl for free...come spring, transfer some outside where they can spread out, but not in Carl's outside enclosure, or he'll eat 'em to te grown!
Try getting a mineral supplement to change that substrate eating habit. Miner-all outdoor has worked well to curb one of mine from eating rocks and dirt. The only other thing I can think of is if you have a red heat lamp that may make the substrate look appealing.
Redstrike said:
Hmm no, it's outside so no heat lamps. I can almost see the cogs grinding in his brain when he does it, too. He sniffs it, looks around, sniffs it again, still kind of unsure, then decides to heck with it and tries to eat it even though he obviously thinks it's gonna taste funny based on the smell
Only reason I can see for it as far as the color red is that when it's wet it is kind of a reddish color.- Status
