Uncle Bri Update

Lyn W

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Lovely, funny pics but could he squash and hurt the little one if he lay on it?
 

ben awes

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Lovely, funny pics but could he squash and hurt the little one if he lay on it?
No, he's not nearly heavy enough yet, someday though. He is growing much faster than the little guy!
 

Levi the Leopard

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Interesting that your leopard walks the perimeter and the aldabra doesn't. My leopard is a perimeter pacer, too.

If it's not too difficult to open up the middle of the donut, try it... See if that makes a difference.
 

ben awes

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Hi all, Uncle Bri update - 12.75" long x 9.75" wide, just about 16 lbs, 31 months.

I opened up middle of my donut enclosure (well almost, it's still a donut, but it's got a tiny center now), and shazam! Bri is much more active, walks the whole place. Hopefully that continues. Interestingly he lost a pound as well and has not really gained it back? (He keeps growing, but dropped the pound and then just continued at the normal growth pace) Could be a coincidence, could be the additional exercise?

My little Leopard remains the slowest growing tort of all time. He / she is still just 5.2oz at 13 months old. Seems healthy and active and gets along swimmingly with Uncle Bri, seems to like to eat, just minuscule growth! Here are some shots this morning. I'm proud to show Bri going after dry hay! Nothing added, just dry hay! And then he got distracted and came in to check out the camera!ImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1429968251.752276.jpg

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ben awes

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Uncle Bri update! Uncle Bri is nearing 3years old (2yrs, 10mo, 20dys to be exact). i was told he was 1year old when we got in in september 2013 so i consider his arrival date as his birthday. today he weighed 20lbs, 1.6oz. He is 14.5" long x 11" wide. He's doing great it seems. very active, growing like crazy. As many of you have followed on my other threads Uncle Bri has a split/crack in his plastron. Been working with my vet on what to do about it. At this point we are going to try the following from another vet:

"I find cleaning the site with a chlorhexadene scrub,rinsing and drying afterwards weekly should keep it clean. I'll sometimes apply bone-wax over the site to keep dirt/debris out. This should be scrubbed off with each cleaning."

None of the vets that provided feedback were overly concerned about the crack. I am not sure why, because it concerns me! It has not stopped growing since I first discovered it and i don't see why it will stop now? Maybe keeping it super clean will encourage new growth to not split? Who knows!!! we'll give it a try and see.

His growth rate is kinda crazy these days. He is moving around great and stands tall and looks terrific. Should I feed him a lot less food? Not sure what to do there. His shell is getting smoother. The slight pyramiding he had when i first got him seems to not have gotten worse, and his new growth since then has been fairly smooth. I do worry that he is growing too fast. I love that he is getting big, but he'll be huge soon enough, i don't need to rush it!

I've been tracking his growth fairly carefully and now that I have had him almost 2 years I've got enough data to begin to see a trend. The most interesting thing to track is his "doubling" rate. When he arrived on Sept 11, '13 he was 1lb 3.6oz. 100 days later he was double that. 140 days later he had doubled again. 167 days later he had doubled again. 263 days later he has doubled again. Across that time each doubling has happened on average 1.3 times the time it took the previous time. (actuals are 1.26, 1.31, 1.27, 1.34). If this serves as a predictor then he would double again by June 2016 @ 38lbs.

The summer project is to build a large privacy fence around the backyard - and due to the design of our house, we built a second wall as well - the fence to keep Bri in the yard, and a wall to keep Bri out of the house! Progress photos included.ImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1438437283.012777.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1438437322.600866.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1438437342.274389.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1438437360.600385.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1438437397.735889.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1438437420.580192.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1438437448.527724.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1438437463.650957.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1438437481.377312.jpgImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1438437518.511968.jpg
 

ben awes

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Uncle Bri update - Uncle Bri turned 3 on Sept 11th, which also marks two years to the day we have had him/her. He seems to be doing well aside from the not pooping very often! He remains active, eating well, interacts well. I am going to increase the overall lighting in his enclosure. He's got plenty of UVB and heat lamps, etc, but possibly the overall lighting is too dim. Going to through more watts at him and see if that helps activity level. He keep growing like a weed even though I have reduced his food supply a bit. Whatever he eats he seems to turn into body mass.

He is 22lbs, 14.5" x 11"

I am going to try and upload a video clip - hope this work!

1zywvag.jpg

14c9p2a.jpg

View My Video
 

Yvonne G

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Did you get your fence finished this summer? Uncle looks great.
 

ben awes

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Hi Yvonne, I did not finish the fence yet! Oh my, lots of work! I'm still plugging along. Ground is not frozen yet so I've been able to pick away at it. Here is a shot with the steel panels going on taken a couple weeks ago. Just can't seem to find a few full days to put into it - but it's coming along.

ImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1450028042.914047.jpg
 

ben awes

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Hi all, I've been exceptionally delinquent in providing updates on Uncle Bri. I love seeing updates on ALL the other Aldabra's on the forum and so I am embarrassed that I have not provided any myself.

Uncle Bri - He is approx. 4 years, 9 months old. He is between 50 and 56 pounds depending the day I weight him, and he is 20" long. He's as awesome as ever! Thank goodness it's finally summer here and Bri can spend much of his time outside. He is eating and growing well. I think maybe he has slowed his growth slightly, but i am not sure about that. He definitely goes through growth spurts. For example, he passed 50 lbs for the first time 7 weeks ago, and hit a high of 56, but has weighed between 50 and 53 lbs every week for the past 6. I had him on antibiotics for the first time ever for a short time over the winter because he had a runny nose. His activity level and eating had not changed. My vet was unsure if it was RNS or not, was not very concerned, but decided to prescribe just in case. It was a challenge to administer the meds. We decided on large pills that I could break into peices as needed and it was easy to fool him the first couple times by hiding it in a bite of banana or something, but he wised up pretty quick and started to really smell closely everything i fed him, so i had to get pretty creative with masking the smell and the visual. I also turned up the heat a bit. The meds worked or he recovered on his own.
He's doing great now.

My fence enclosure is still not fully done, though I continue to make progress.

The big news is that in March I added two new Aldabra's to the herd. I simply am convinced that companionship has value and did not want Uncle Bri to go through life alone without another life nearby. I will begin a new post on those guys soon. I am including a photo! They are kept separate for now because I needed to quaranteen them and because they are way too small to share space with Uncle Bri.

Uncle Bri does live with Larry Bird, a 4 year old African Leopard tortoise, and has for 3 years. They seem to get along fine, although we've discovered that Larry Bird is a male and tries to mount Uncle Bri all the time. I am not sure if I should be concerned about this or not? Larry Bird is only 4 pounds and seems to be nothing more than a bit of pest. If anyone has thoughts on this behavior I be happy to listen.

These photos are Bri after he walked through the sprinkler.

Please note that only one image is uploading. Tiny pic is not working and I keep getting "deleted" notifications in my post. Such a pain! it's so time consuming to use tinypic. Is there another way?!!!

xmpgf6.jpg

10cjmh1.jpg
 
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Yvonne G

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I find using the Forum's "upload a file" works very well for me. From the computer, choose "Upload a File" from the lower right of the screen and then when the next screen comes up, that should be where your pictures are stored Just choose the one you want to upload and click

birthday.gif

"open" - sorry about that. I had to do it to see what to click. Which reminds me that I forgot to do the birthdays this a.m. so I'd better hop to it right now!!!!
 

ben awes

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Thanks Yvonne, we love our torts don't we! They are the best.
 
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