Help me please (shell coming apart?)

Helms.Abby

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IMG_0197.JPG IMG_0201.JPG IMG_0202.JPG I just recently started watching over this red foot tortoise. I feel bad because I just recently started to research on what my family has been doing wrong. It is my older brothers tortoise and my family sees nothing wrong with the way they are housing and caring for him. His shell appears to be falling apart at the scutes and I would greatly appreciate help as to what to do to help him.
 

Anyfoot

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I just recently started watching over this red foot tortoise. I feel bad because I just recently started to research on what my family has been doing wrong. It is my older brothers tortoise and my family sees nothing wrong with the way they are housing and caring for him. His shell appears to be falling apart at the scutes and I would greatly appreciate help as to what to do to help him.
It's looks like dirt to me. Put your tort in a container of warm water and scrub the guy with a scrubbing brush in the direction of the grain to see if it cleans it.
 

Anyfoot

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Make that a nail brush. I'm common as muck and say scrubbing brush. :D.
 

TammyJ

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He looks as if he has been kept much too dry so that his shell is pyramiding quite badly.
It seems that he just needs to be kept in much more humid conditions and given daily warm soaks.
Then his diet should be checked and corrected if it has been wrong, making sure he gets his calcium (cuttlefish bone, boiled egg crushed with the shell) and protein too.
Thank you for caring and trying to help him!
 

Pearly

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I think i've seen that before. If that's this same thing, it will nit come off in washing/scrubbing. That case if i recall correctly was related to environmental conditions - desiccating heat affecting new growth, or... was it bacterial or fungal?... can't remember. Abby I hope you sort it out whatever it is
 

Anyfoot

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If you look at the marginal scutes they also have dry dirt on them. It looks to me that this tort has been bedding down in dry dirt, most likely coir. I maybe wrong but I've had this with some of the guys I took in. Either way best to scrub first and see if it cleans off.
It's been kept way too dry.
 

Yvonne G

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What you're seeing is the new growth area, and it's much too dry, as has already been said. This tortoise species comes from an area of South America where it is warm and humid. You need to try to mimic those conditions.
 

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