Baby Red Foot has soft shell...

[Abby413]

my boyfriend and I have two baby red foot tortoises. We got them a little over a month ago and at the time they were the same size. Now one has grown significantly and the other has not and its shell has been getting soft, almost sponge like. I know baby tortoises shells are suppose to be soft until they're around 6 or so months. Our babies are around 4-ish months old. When we bought them both, the shells were fine and within 48 hours we bag an noticing the dark, softer she'll and it's been getting worse since. Any ideas of what's up with our little guy? Should we be worrying? Thanks!

 

[Nicole M]

What kind of lighting to you have? Do they have access to proper UVB lighting? That sounds like metabolic bone disease.

 

[Abby413]

What kind of lighting to you have? Do they have access to proper UVB lighting? That sounds like metabolic bone disease.

They have a UVB light and a heat basking light, turns on at 8am and off at 8pm. That's what we were afraid of but hoping it's something else.

 

[Gillian M]

Hi Abby and welcome to the forum!

Your torts are adorable.

 

[dmmj]

it's not actually metabolic bone disorder that is usually a misshapen shell but it's still hard. Your tortoise is failing for a variety of reasons you need to separate them immediately Paris don't work. As evidence by Ur 2. the softer one needs lots of calcium and lots and lots of UVB preferably natural you probably don't want to go to event because there isn't a whole lot that can be done your tortoise will need to survive or not I don't mean to be blunt but I don't want you spending money on a doomed cause. what is their diet like?

 

[Pearly]

I haven't figured out how to post links when using my iphone (which is my mobile device right now) but I keep the redfooted too and 12 months ago I had all the wrong information and was doing lots of things wrong too. Luckily for my baby torts I found this forum and quickly gained access to good reliable information. If you haven't already, google "TORTOISE LIBRARY" this site was at one point my tort keeping bible. It's done by one of our members. There is also another site I used a lot in the beginning (google "TURTLETARY") also run by TFO member. Those two are great resource for new Redfooted keeper. Not to mention this forum, but that will take you some time, to sift through all the threads to find info pertinent to your particular issues. I would check out "BEGINNERS MISTAKES" though (just go to your TFO menu, then select "search" and type in "beg. Mist...," to pull the thread. Then check out the "South American" section under "species specific", also under "general tortoise" check out "enclosures", and "diet" sections... Lots of reading! So read, ask questions, post pictures of your pets and their enclosure, how you keep them, what you feed them.,, and we'll help you figure things out! Oh, and welcome from Texas!