flakey scalp

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pros81

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Hi Everyone,

I've been lurking about in this forum for months now, but finally decided to create an account and post once I came across an issue that I'm not too certain how to approach. Hopefully someone here can be of assistance.

I have an 8 month old cherryhead named Gordon. Recently, the top of his head has been turning a whitish color that looks very much like dry skin (or I guess scale). I want to just write it off as natural shedding due to growth, but I just wanted to make sure that really is the case, and not something more dire that needs immediate attention. It has been persisting for about 2 weeks now.

Here are some pics I just took this morning:

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Does that look like anything serious to anyone?

I tried my best to research this prior to posting here about it, but apparently not many others have had this problem. The few that do have this issue, the general response was to make sure humidity/temperature/lighting/diet were all ideal. In my case, they are. Humidity stays constant at 80% throughout the enclosure (hides maintaining an even higher level). Temperature fluctuates from 80F at one end to around 89-92 on the other end (daytime temp; at night it levels out to 80F throughout). I'm using a 6500K compact florescent bulb for lighting, but I have it pointing completely away from the enclosure, so only faint traces of indirect light make it in. I feed it the "typical" redfoot diet as prescribed from turtletary.com (today is fruit only day, so as you see in the pictures, I feed my tortoise cantaloupe).

Thanks in advance for the sage advice.
 

Meg90

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They shed skin/scales as they grow. Nothing to worry about. Welcome! Please post some more pics of him and his setup! He looks like a beautiful Cherry!
 

Flametorch

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I'm pretty sure its not a bad thing, because mine seems to have the same flakes... but i think his were caused by him scratching himself
 

pros81

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Thanks for the replies!

My intuition told me it was just normal signs of reptilian growth, but I just had to make sure since it only appears to be happening on the top of his/her noggin.

So is it safe to say that only his/her head is getting bigger? In that case, how does one go about keeping a tortoise's ego in check? :p

Lastly, more pics as requested (no enclosure pics as of now):

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