SOMETHING ALARMING!

Tom

The Dog Trainer
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 9, 2010
Messages
63,265
Location (City and/or State)
Southern California
I've never seen a captive raised Leopard or Sulcata on here that is not pyramided and many times even worse than my Redfoot is and nothing like a wild animal. Some are even raised outdoors in great sunny humid places like San Diego and still not smooth. How is this explained? away?

This is absurd. These pages are filled with smooth tortoise of those species. And San Diego does not have humid weather most of the year. And, as has already been mentioned, sun has nothing to do with pyramiding or not.

Where the sulcata comes from, they have a hot humid rainy season for 3-4 months every year. Conditions are like Florida or New Orleans in summer there. This is when baby sulcatas hatch. During the dry portion of the year, they live in warm damp underground burrows to escape the heat above ground.

Further, did you ever put a meter under a Vita-Lite? They produce a nice looking light spectrum, but almost no UV.

What you are suffering from is called superstition. You are observing things in front of you and jumping to incorrect conclusions for the wrong reasons.

Because you posted this on Champoi's thread, I needed to respond to it here, but this is not the place for this discussion. If you want to discuss this further, learn where you've gone wrong logically speaking, and learn what really works and why we know what really works, I'm happy to oblige, but you'll need to start your own thread on the topic.
 

Pearly

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2015
Messages
5,287
Location (City and/or State)
Central Texas, Austin area
Thank you for your detailed explanation William. It sounds like in the early days your tort was lacking vitamin D. You weren't offering the correct lighting or diet to fullfil this vitamin requirement. It looks like you then corrected the lighting and over fed him with protein which is taxing on the organs, all these things point towards sign of potential MBD not just pyramiding, Glad he's ok now.

It's a tort that grows in dry conditions that causes pyramiding, the new growth needs to be supple so not to pyramid, hence advice on hydration techniques like high humidity, spraying and/or soaking.
It's lack of vitamins in diet that caused MBD, hence the advise is a varied mixed diet with a UVB source of some sort.

Anyway I admire your truthfulness, but you shouldn't be ashamed or blame yourself for your torts looks. There were plenty more in your shoes back then when everyone was learning and information wasn't as easy to come by, it's easier with the aid of this forum for a newbie to bypass all those years of learning and stories like yours should be told to aid the new tort owner.
Well done, Craig
 

Salspi

Active Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2017
Messages
339
Location (City and/or State)
Chicago
Honestly, your sulcata does NOT look pyramided (is this a word?) at all to me. I’m not sure why you were told that. Looks very nice!
 

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