Shrimp is getting HUGE!

chaseswife

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OK- so maybe huge is overstating it a little bit, but we do have big goals for him. We think he was around 3 weeks when we got him and less than 43 grams, and now he is 7 weeks and 73 grams!

His weekly weights so far:
9/14: 1.5 ounces
9/21: 2.0 ounces
(With a new, more accurate scale)
9/28: 62 grams
10/5: 73 grams

This is when we first brought him home. 20140906_152700.jpg


He wasn't wanting to look at the camera today. 20141005_124657.jpg 20141005_124550.jpg 20141005_124535.jpg 20141005_124510.jpg
 

chaseswife

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So my husband wasn't very happy about us bringing Shrimp home. BUT- today he looked over my shoulder and says "Oh- you posted on your tortoise thing. What did they say about how much he is growing?" So i just showed him my screen. And then as he continued reading he says "that's awesome that Tom thinks he is doing good!" I give him the side-eye and he adds "you said he was the expert guy right? His opinion is actually with something!" And then he got to the MOAR picture and started actually laughing.
I think he has been paying a lot more attention to the tortoise talk around our house than I thought and that he is actually starting to like Shrimp.
 

chaseswife

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So cute Mike! It is amazing how quickly and beautiful they grow when raised right. I was at my sister-in-laws the other night and was noticing her sulcata tortoise enclosure in the middle of her living room. It was so sad- I couldn't even tell at first what kind they were cause they were so dirty. 2 of them in a 1'x4' fish tank, no heat, no light, no humidity, sand substrate. I wasn't sure how to bring it up, but when I asked her how old they were she started telling me that when they got them the previous owner said they would grow really fast and need to be kept outside within 2 years. But now 4 years later they are still tiny and aren't growing hardly at all. I had a very hard time not sounding like a snotty know it all- especially since I have only I owned shrimp for a month now- but i thought I was making some head way with her. Talked about how they liked it warm and moist, they need uvb, that being in a small cage would stunt their growth. We even talked about easy ways to build outside enclosures. .. but in the end she said that her husband just liked them being small and inside. o_O
 

Tom

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So my husband wasn't very happy about us bringing Shrimp home. BUT- today he looked over my shoulder and says "Oh- you posted on your tortoise thing. What did they say about how much he is growing?" So i just showed him my screen. And then as he continued reading he says "that's awesome that Tom thinks he is doing good!" I give him the side-eye and he adds "you said he was the expert guy right? His opinion is actually with something!" And then he got to the MOAR picture and started actually laughing.
I think he has been paying a lot more attention to the tortoise talk around our house than I thought and that he is actually starting to like Shrimp.

I think of myself more as a loud mouth, than an expert. :)
 

Tom

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So cute Mike! It is amazing how quickly and beautiful they grow when raised right. I was at my sister-in-laws the other night and was noticing her sulcata tortoise enclosure in the middle of her living room. It was so sad- I couldn't even tell at first what kind they were cause they were so dirty. 2 of them in a 1'x4' fish tank, no heat, no light, no humidity, sand substrate. I wasn't sure how to bring it up, but when I asked her how old they were she started telling me that when they got them the previous owner said they would grow really fast and need to be kept outside within 2 years. But now 4 years later they are still tiny and aren't growing hardly at all. I had a very hard time not sounding like a snotty know it all- especially since I have only I owned shrimp for a month now- but i thought I was making some head way with her. Talked about how they liked it warm and moist, they need uvb, that being in a small cage would stunt their growth. We even talked about easy ways to build outside enclosures. .. but in the end she said that her husband just liked them being small and inside. o_O


Keep working on this. Your help might be the only help those babies get. In time, maybe you can convince her to look at some threads here on the forum. Even if she doesn't want to join, she can still read all she wants. Sometimes the first contact plants a seed and it will take future visits and conversations to grow that seed to fruition.

The husband sounds like a real winner... Lets deprive these animals of what they need so I can have it easy and be entertained... Sheesh.

And Shrimp continues to look excellent!
 

Hermes

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I hate it when people have animals but are unwilling to put any work into it. When I was in high school I used to work at a tiny pet store, it was staffed by just the owner and I would come in after school and clean the cages and do random stuff, well that's when I started disliking humans, we had people that bought exotic pets just to look cool, as a status symbol I guess, but they refused to take steps to make their animals comfortable, I saw that mostly with snakes but also reptiles in general, they would keep beautiful snakes in tiny spaces just to show them off to their friends but wouldn't have appropriate heat/light in their enclosures because "the light would reflect on their tv" or "can't afford to plug in all those bulbs all day". So yeah that's why now, almost 20 years later I like my pets more than I like most people.
 

chaseswife

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10/26: 91 grams, 2.75 inches. That is +11 grams this week! Maybe just making up for last week's slow growth?20141026_094446.jpg
 

Alaskamike

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Nice job. Shrimp is lucky to own humans who care. With your sis - in - law , you might make more progress if you downplay the size gains. As that is what her husband worries about and focus on the needs of the torts for health. I wouldn't even mention how much yours has grown ( to them :).

Kept dry without proper heat and hydration - to include humidity levels over 60% ( some would say 80%, they will likely develop metabolic bone disease. It is not that they LIKE these conditions, but they NEED them for health. It's the same with nutrition. Feeding proper foods in great variety is not for their pallet. It's for health.

Expensive vet bills or finding one dead he would not like either.
 

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