Dry Skin on head and long jaw

[FloresGurl]

Greetings People! I have notice a few issues with my Sulcata and was hoping to get advice on how to fix. First issues is dry skin on top of the head, which I don't understand what I am doing wrong cause I soak her every other day and also spray water on her everyday. The second issuse is the lower jaw is longer than the upper. I purchased a cuttle bone but she won't touch it. What shall I do?

 

[Yvonne G]

I have no scientific evidence for my thought, but I THINK that beak/jaw problems such as your tortoise's have to do with not enough calcium in the diet. I don't know this to be for sure, but I also had a bunch of Manouria raised from an egg that ended up with over-shot lower beaks such as your tortoise's. They were fed a varied diet, but I was stingy on the calcium supplementation.

As to the dryness...again, another THOUGHT with absolutely no scientific proof. Water tends to dry out skin. Don't you notice that if you have your hands in water a lot the skin tends to dry out? I just got through watering my plants outside and giving all the tortoises fresh water from the hose. Now I'm sitting here wishing I had some lotion near the computer because my hands feel so dry. So my thought is that moisture in the tortoise's skin has to come from within. I don't know how, but it might be diet related also.

I'm not saying that because water dries them out that you need to stop watering them. Just the opposite is true. I'm saying, I don't know how to moisten their dry skin. But keep up the watering!

 

[chikinsama]

Greetings People! I have notice a few issues with my Sulcata and was hoping to get advice on how to fix. First issues is dry skin on top of the head, which I don't understand what I am doing wrong cause I soak her every other day and also spray water on her everyday. The second issuse is the lower jaw is longer than the upper. I purchased a cuttle bone but she won't touch it. What shall I do?

Good evening. I'm not much of an authority on tortoises but I just adopted a five year old Russian male from the vet in my area (I've been shopping around for a baby Russian for awhile now but when she told me she had to move and showed me a picture of the little guy my heart just melted).
Anyway, Seymour has a little dry skin problem of his own and she told me that it would clear up on its own (so long as you continue to soak regularly) and is perfectly natural from time to time. How is the humidity in your enclosure? Is it flaking on the top of your tortoises head or near the eyes?
Also I was told that they soak twice a week. Maybe you're soaking too much?
Keep me up to date and I'll tell you if there are any developments with this dry skin issue on my end! Good luck! :3