How they grow .. and why..

[Redfoot NERD]

Thanks for the info, your redfoots do look beautiful!

I've also looked into redfoot care when I acquired mine. I believe it is important to provide a most natural situation. They live in forested areas, with open spaces. I therefore decided to provide enough shade, but also an MVB for "sun experience". And my redfoot really loves to bask! And yes, overall temps are high enough, she's just loves the sun.

I would also worry that the diet doesn't provide enough D3. Not all mushrooms contain a lot of it. Supplementing might be the way to go, because it is impossible for us to provide a 100% natural diet. I'll just go with the UVB light....

I think there are more right ways to raise redfoots, as long as we provide them with what they need.

Only 2 responses .. Vitamin D is retained in the fat and can become toxic easily [ regardless the source ] - not much is really required.
I hear about all these different right ways to care for them.. where are the pics and why even consider anything else? I can count on one hand the number that have raised hatchlings that look anywhere near as smooth and healthy? Pearly and Craig are 2 and a couple others I know [ that go by my caresheet ].

My way is NOT the only way .... show me a way that works as well.. and as simple.

 

[Big Ol Tortoise]

In my red foot book it says they need warm on one end and cooler on the other. Is it just preference? or outdated info.

 

[DutchieAmanda]

Only 2 responses .. Vitamin D is retained in the fat and can become toxic easily [ regardless the source ] - not much is really required.

This is not true. Only dietary vit D can become toxic due to overdose. VitD made by the animal himself in response to UVB will never overdose, because the animal will regulate the production based on his needs. Maybe another reason to not trust solely on dietary vitD...?

I've raised my redfoot from a few months old with an MVB, and she's happy and healthy as far as I can tell...

 

[Anyfoot]

In my red foot book it says they need warm on one end and cooler on the other. Is it just preference? or outdated info.

That book is a very very good read, and there is some extremely good ideas and facts in the book. If I recall correctly(read it about 2yrs ago) it says the ideal temps are between 27(80.6f) & 33°c (91.4f). Over years things get tweaked to 'hopefully' the point of perfection. That books methods are very good, but is it going out of date, everyone learns as time passes, in another 10yrs that book probably would be classed as out of date. I wouldn't keep my reds at 33°c/91.4f.
Those 2 limits of temps have been perfected a bit more now towards just an overall ambient. In my vivarium the ambient was 82 to 86f.

I hope I've explained that without doing the book an injustice, because it's a good read.

 

[Redfoot NERD]

This is not true. Only dietary vit D can become toxic due to overdose. VitD made by the animal himself in response to UVB will never overdose, because the animal will regulate the production based on his needs. Maybe another reason to not trust solely on dietary vitD...?

I've raised my redfoot from a few months old with an MVB, and she's happy and healthy as far as I can tell...
View attachment 193472

@DutchieAmanda .. where did you find that info - link please?

 

[DutchieAmanda]

@DutchieAmanda .. where did you find that info - link please?

I studied veterinary medicine, this is not internet information...

 

[Redfoot NERD]

That book is a very very good read, and there is some extremely good ideas and facts in the book. If I recall correctly(read it about 2yrs ago) it says the ideal temps are between 27(80.6f) & 33°c (91.4f). Over years things get tweaked to 'hopefully' the point of perfection. That books methods are very good, but is it going out of date, everyone learns as time passes, in another 10yrs that book probably would be classed as out of date. I wouldn't keep my reds at 33°c/91.4f.
Those 2 limits of temps have been perfected a bit more now towards just an overall ambient. In my vivarium the ambient was 82 to 86f.

I hope I've explained that without doing the book an injustice, because it's a good read.

That didn't answer the question @Anyfoot - the answer is no a warm and cool end is not for redfoots.

 

[DutchieAmanda]

I studied veterinary medicine, this is not internet information...

I did some googling for you:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervitaminosis_D
"Excessive exposure to sunlight poses no risk in vitamin D toxicity through overproduction of vitamin D precursor, cholecalciferol, regulating vitamin D production."

 

[Redfoot NERD]

I studied veterinary medicine, this is not internet information...

There's not a book or author that explains it? Thanks just the same...

 

[Anyfoot]

That didn't answer the question @Anyfoot - the answer is no a warm and cool end is not for redfoots.

No warm and cool end for redfoots @Redfoot NERD. As you can see I have a slight taper in my viv because of the placement of my heat source(at one end). The next set up I will put the heat source in the middle of the viv, in theory I should then be able to get 86f in the middle and 84f at each end, or 2f below these readings.

What you still doing up Terry?

This one was raised with an ambient temperature(no basking spot drying the carapace). He's a bit dirty in the 2nd photo.
Coming up to 7" SCL

 

[Redfoot NERD]

No warm and cool end for redfoots @Redfoot NERD. As you can see I have a slight taper in my viv because of the placement of my heat source(at one end). The next set up I will put the heat source in the middle of the viv, in theory I should then be able to get 86f in the middle and 84f at each end, or 2f below these readings.

What you still doing up Terry?

This one was raised with an ambient temperature(no basking spot drying the carapace). He's a bit dirty in the 2nd photo.
Coming up to 7" SCL
View attachment 193475 View attachment 193476

what does this mean? As you can see I have a slight taper in my viv because of the placement of my heat source(at one end).

Have no idea why I'm up at 2:30 a.m. here??? Getting more and more confused by the extreme differences of experience and education expressed on this forum Craig. I choose to keep it simple... maybe that's not a good extreme???

I told you from the start to not change anything... the way you do all the minute details might be overwhelming or too difficult for some .. but few I've seem even come close to how yours' looks!!!!

I'm out.................

 

[Anyfoot]

What I mean is, We are aiming for an ambient temp throughout, my 82 to 86f could be seen as contradicting that. 82 to 86f could be seen as a warm side and cool side to some. I don't think so though.

However the next viv I set up I will aim for an even more accurate ambient throughout.

In my last vivarium I had the CHE was set to one end of the vivarium. So if I set that end to 86f, the opposite end ends up at around 82f.
If I move that CHE to the middle of the enclosure and still set it to 86f, in theory each end of my viv should be 84f. So I've only got a 2f difference through instead of my existing 4f. In an ideal world my viv would be 86f throughout so they would NOT seek out sitting under the CHE to get to the 86f area. The other option is not to allow access to the area under the CHE at all, which is what I did with my hatchling via a shield blocking the heat coming directly down under the CHE.

Too much minor detail again, but I'm trying to explain my thoughts to YOU.
Top and bottom of it is, in the wild they CAN get the required temps without seeking out the hot spots from the sun.

 

[cdmay]

No warm and cool end for redfoots @Redfoot NERD. As you can see I have a slight taper in my viv because of the placement of my heat source(at one end). The next set up I will put the heat source in the middle of the viv, in theory I should then be able to get 86f in the middle and 84f at each end, or 2f below these readings.



This one was raised with an ambient temperature(no basking spot drying the carapace). He's a bit dirty in the 2nd photo.
Coming up to 7" SCL
View attachment 193475 View attachment 193476

Wow Anyfoot....you raised that nice looking animal up in England? As Darth Vader would say, 'impressive!'
I'll only say this...both NERD and Anyfoot have produced super nice looking captive raised animals with a key factor that many don't seem to notice. Both of these guys tortoises have smooth shells (that's easy I think) but in addition, their animals have natural looking, flattened front leg scales. For whatever reason (I'm thinking dietary) many keepers are growing up nice looking smooth shelled red-footed tortoises but whose front legs scales are curled up like potato chips. This happened to me years ago with some hold-backs I raised for a few years. My suspicion at the time, and still is, was because I was feeding a lot of Mazuri tortoise chow which I personally think is a crappy staple food item. After that I raised a group of four of my neonates for 18 months but I strictly avoided any and all commercial 'chows' made for tortoises. All of them had nice normal looking front leg scales.
I'm guessing here but I would bet that NERD and Anyfoot are not feeding Mazuri to their growing kids.

 

[Anyfoot]

Wow Anyfoot....you raised that nice looking animal up in England? As Darth Vader would say, 'impressive!'
I'll only say this...both NERD and Anyfoot have produced super nice looking captive raised animals with a key factor that many don't seem to notice. Both of these guys tortoises have smooth shells (that's easy I think) but in addition, their animals have natural looking, flattened front leg scales. For whatever reason (I'm thinking dietary) many keepers are growing up nice looking smooth shelled red-footed tortoises but whose front legs scales are curled up like potato chips. This happened to me years ago with some hold-backs I raised for a few years. My suspicion at the time, and still is, was because I was feeding a lot of Mazuri tortoise chow which I personally think is a crappy staple food item. After that I raised a group of four of my neonates for 18 months but I strictly avoided any and all commercial 'chows' made for tortoises. All of them had nice normal looking front leg scales.
I'm guessing here but I would bet that NERD and Anyfoot are not feeding Mazuri to their growing kids.

Thanks Carl, that's quite a compliment.
Again I've just learnt something new, I've seen Tortoises with the scales curling up and never thought anything of it.

I've never fed pellets in any form.
I feed weeds and flowers over greens when ever possible, which most of the time, even in winter I scrounge enough weeds to feed juveniles with a bit of romaine, rocket etc Fruit and mushrooms of course.
For protein I settled on 1 pinkie per wk for most part when raising this one after I read somewhere that natural animal protein passes on calcium,D3 and numerous other vitamins and nutrients. Whether that's true, I'm still waiting for someone to confirm it for me. Anybody. . Obviously I tried other proteins but settled on a pinkie per wk.
Does that diet fit in with your thoughts?

 

[Big Ol Tortoise]

Thanks Carl, that's quite a compliment.
Again I've just learnt something new, I've seen Tortoises with the scales curling up and never thought anything of it.

I've never fed pellets in any form.
I feed weeds and flowers over greens when ever possible, which most of the time, even in winter I scrounge enough weeds to feed juveniles with a bit of romaine, rocket etc Fruit and mushrooms of course.
For protein I settled on 1 pinkie per wk for most part when raising this one after I read somewhere that natural animal protein passes on calcium,D3 and numerous other vitamins and nutrients. Whether that's true, I'm still waiting for someone to confirm it for me. Anybody. . Obviously I tried other proteins but settled on a pinkie per wk.
Does that diet fit in with your thoughts?

Calcium makes sense cause they're eating the bones. I don't know about the other stuff but I wouldn't doubt it.

 

[Anyfoot]

Calcium makes sense cause they're eating the bones. I don't know about the other stuff but I wouldn't doubt it.

I agree, I keep asking. Does anyone know how a mole that lives under the ground and only eats worms gets its vitamin D to synthesize the calcium for good healthy bone growth. The only thing I can think of is the worms. Does that prove that Vit D is passed on when an animal consumes another living creature?

 

[JoesMum]

I agree, I keep asking. Does anyone know how a mole that lives under the ground and only eats worms gets its vitamin D to synthesize the calcium for good healthy bone growth. The only thing I can think of is the worms. Does that prove that Vit D is passed on when an animal consumes another living creature?

From what I understand of the biology, some animals have the ability to take vitamin D3 from food (which humans do to some extent) and some don't. Tortoises apparently are very poor at taking D3 from their diet - they manufacture their own on exposure to UVB (as humans also do to some extent)

I guess that moles have evolved to get D3 almost entirely from diet. We're somewhere in the middle and tortoises are at the other end of the scale getting making all their D3 themselves. They've evolved to have to bask in sunlight to get the heat they need to be active, so why not make use of the UVB at the same time?

 

[Anyfoot]

From what I understand of the biology, some animals have the ability to take vitamin D3 from food (which humans do to some extent) and some don't. Tortoises apparently are very poor at taking D3 from their diet - they manufacture their own on exposure to UVB (as humans also do to some extent)

I guess that moles have evolved to get D3 almost entirely from diet. We're somewhere in the middle and tortoises are at the other end of the scale getting making all their D3 themselves. They've evolved to have to bask in sunlight to get the heat they need to be active, so why not make use of the UVB at the same time?

So can a Tortoise absorb uvb rays through the carapace and scales?

 

[JoesMum]

So can a Tortoise absorb uvb rays through the carapace and scales?

Definitely not through the carapace. From what I have seen different species absorb UVB through skin at different rates - skin is a different organ in different species of animal. No surprise there. (Skin is a bodily organ)

Tortoises spend a lot of time basking to get heat. The carapace probably protects them from overdose! They take in a very small amount of UVB from the small areas of skin exposed, but do it over very long periods.

I've had a quick hunt on the internet and found this which I think agrees with my understanding .
http://www.uvguide.co.uk/skintests.htm

 

[saginawhxc]

I am still fairly new to Redfoot tortoises, but that care sheet is the exact one I have been going with for my rescue. Well to be honest looking at it now I chose to listen to someone else on feeding schedule, but with reading this thread I'm considering shifting back to what you advocate.

Right now I have mine set up out in the tort shed where an ambient temp of about 85 is kept at tank level without any bulbs at all other than a light that sits in the general area.