MyTortoiseSpike!200
New Member
Hi! I’m new to tortoise forum. I’ve been doing some research to find out if my tortoise has MBD and I emailed Arizona Tortoise Compound (where we got him from) with the details to see what their opinion was and Andrew thought that he didn’t have MBD, and that he was just dehydrated, but I wanted to get a few other opinions because this whole process has been confusing. Spike is a home’s hingeback. Spike has very sunken scutes, a sloped back and drags the back of his plastron when he walks. He is pretty strong though. He eats lettuce, tomato, strawberries, cucumbers, mealworms, cantaloupe and apple. We supplement his food with calcium powder. He refuses to eat any dark greens and will hardly even eat lettuce. I am pretty sure that he is dehydrated, so I’ve increased his soaks to 45 min every few days. I’ve found it difficult to keep his humidity at around 85 percent but I’ve also been extra careful making sure that it’s up there recently. Spike is energetic and walks around a lot. We use coconut fiber and sphagnum moss as substrate. I’ve found my online research to be pretty confusing. It would be helpful if I could get a few opinions on whether Spike is just dehydrated or has MBD. Thank you!