Color Changing

[Otter]

This is my very first hatchling it hatched end of December so about 7 months old.

The leg color started out dark brown/black and I have been noticing the dark brown/black is now really fading and being replaced with this light brown tan color. I have not seen this color shift before.

Is this normal or could there be a problem.

Thanks for your time,

John

 

[MysticCaribou]

Following post

 

[N2TORTS]

John....nothing is wrong. You will find most of that "tan" is actually dirt. A nice shallow soak and tooth brush will clean that right up if that is your concern. (and a good harmless learning experiment for yourself)
Although I will add...from hatchling stage on up you can find slight color changes within carapace/scale coloring due to varied reasons such as, sun exposure, diet etc.. Nice looking little RF by the way .....
" Happy Red-footing"

 

[Otter]

Thank you for the reply yes I am supper happy with my first tortoise hatchling. This is an actual color change going on though I have had him on a paper towel and sphagnum moss substrate only so not on any soil at all. I also give regular soaks. So this is the pigment changing very strange. The back legs a changing too.

 

[N2TORTS]

Thank you for the reply yes I am supper happy with my first tortoise hatchling. This is an actual color change going on though I have had him on a paper towel and sphagnum moss substrate only so not on any soil at all. I also give regular soaks. So this is the pigment changing very strange. The back legs a changing too.

The keratin is composed of many layers of very thin, flat cells. ... During shedding (ecdysis), the mitosis in the stratum germinativum forms the new cells moved ... http://www.anapsid.org/basicdermatology.html

 

[jockma]

It's normal. Mine had this. I thought it was scale rot and applied athlete's foot cream all over his legs. It went away.

Though now that I mention it, my case might've been scale rot, I was using athlete's foot cream the entire time before it went away so I wouldn't know for sure But if you look around at other threads you'll see that many RFs have this orange-ish color.

 

[Otter]

Thank you will look around some more then.

 

[kelii]

Mine did that too, but as they got older it went away.