Pretty much they are attacking me on Facebook for stating pyramiding is due to improper humidity and stating this is just an old wives tale promoted by people that have no idea about the actual biology of tortoises which is news to me.
Is the Tortoise Trust reliable?
- Thread starter methos75
- Start date
RhodaE
New Member
I thought it was from improper feeding? We adopted a juvenile leopard, when he was about 10 yrs old, and he was extremely pyramided but seemed perfectly healthy. 20 years later, still doing fine. Always lots of opinions. People get into arguments if you post about a ham sandwich these days. It's why I hardly ever post anything.
The people who have that site are very experienced, however, they still believe in the old, outdated info about pyramiding. It's good to visit other sites and get different opinions, however, our site still has the most up-to-date info on raising baby tortoises.
Yeah, that's what we all believed, but since Tom and others made their experiments public here on the Forum a few years ago, with pictures showing the results (good AND bad) we now know that pyramiding is caused by baby tortoises being raised in too dry conditions.
Isn't that funny... Their info is the same old wrong info that does not work to produce a smooth healthy tortoise, that has been repeated for decades. Literally many decades. Our info, which has been proven thousands of times all over the globe with mountains of evidence is the new and correct info, and they refer to our info as "old wive's tail". That is amusing to me. Hilarious. And the say WE don't understand tortoise biology? That is laughable.
Do this: Ask one of those people who is attacking you how many times they have done side-by-side comparisons with groups of equally started, randomly chosen clutch mates with the methods that they advocate, and the methods that we advocate. I already know what the answer will be. Those people parrot the old wrong info and loudy shout down anyone who differs from them, but they have NO idea what they are talking about because they have never done the work. I did it their way for nearly two decades. It doesn't work. I began a series of ongoing experiments to figure out why their methods didn't work and what DOES work back in about 2007-2008. I made fast progress, and the learning and experimenting continues to this day. You can see hundreds of smooth healthy sulcatas, leopards and other species all over this forum because of this info.
I really wish I could convince those people to just give it a try. Just once. At least then they would have at least one example to point to and argue, but if they tried it they would see how well it works and they wouldn't be arguing with us.
That's pretty much what I told them. Since adopting your method I've had nothing but perfectly smooth healthy tortoises while with theirs nothing but pyramiding
No, not improper feeding. It's due to raising them too dry, low or no humidity. The improper feeding is yet another old outdated theory.
Leopards are one of the hardest ones to keep from pyramiding. But if it's not real bad, most will look a lot better once an adult.
But it's not feeding, it's lack of humidity that causes pyramiding. Also using mercury vapor bulbs.
I signed up to read the thread. They are dismissing your experience as anecdotal and your example of a cherryhead needing high humidity as being a unique requirement for a tropical species. To continue the discussion, I would send some examples of Mark’s star tortoises or leopard tortoises. If I recall correctly that is a UK group and they focus on keeping Mediterranean species. So many of those seem to be collected from the wild and past the critical early stages where pyramiding begins.
I just stopped even attempting to debate with them. It was pointless to continue to do so. I know what's worked for me and that is Tom's method and while I just used my tropical species as an example of it I've also used it for my Leopards, Russian, and even baby box and wood turtles now with outstanding success.
This is very true and offers great insight into part of the problem. I usually see three primary issues when arguing with people from that "camp".
1. They don't seem to understand the difference between raising a growing baby, and housing a full grown adult. I use the example of sea turtles. Everyone has seen video footage of baby sea turtles emerging from their nests on the beach and fumbling toward the ocean. The arribata. Everyone has seen footage of adult sea turtles, or seen them in person, hanging around the reef or coming on to the beach to lay eggs. Ever seen a 6-12 inch sea turtle? I'm sure with enough searching you could find something somewhere, but upon asking, almost no one has ever seen a small juvenile sea turtle. Try asking someone. Why have we not seen juveniles? Where are they all? This is sometimes referred to as "The Lost Years". We don't see them and know very little about where they are or what they are doing between hatching on that beach, and returning to that beach as an adult. Same with our tortoises. Sightings of babies in the wild are extremely uncommon, even in areas where you can stand and watch adult tortoises go about their daily business. No one knows what the babies are doing in the wild. We can surmise that they are hiding and hiding very well, and that where they are hiding conditions, like humidity for one example, are very different than the exposed dry areas where the adults are walking around out in the open.
2. Different species. It should be obvious that a baby sulcata or Indian star need different conditions than an adult Russian or a greek. It seems that when we talk about raising a "tortoise" in the way we are recommending, these people see an adult greek tortoise in their mind and extrapolate what is being said to that one tortoise in their mind. Of course a large adult greek does not need it 80 degrees at night and 80+% humidity all the time. When they argue THAT point, they are correct. I'm envisioning a scene like this when I am arguing my point:
I often wonder of the people I am arguing with have ever even seen this many babies of a tropical humid species in one place, let alone cared for them. The above pic is this year's current batch of platynota babies after their soak and back in to their freshly made brooder boxes. Mallow is on the menu today. Campare the above pic to a person in the UK that has been reading the tortoise trust info and has had an adult greek tortoise for decades. It should be easy to see how they and I would have vastly different perspectives on tortoise care.
3. Refusal to see the obvious right in front of our eyes. The naysayers that don't believe the humidity thing seem to always want to argue about their perception of how adult tortoises live in the wild. All day long they will quote and link weather data and trends from the area of origin. They don't realize that this has almost NOTHING to do with our tortoises. The weather stations that record these weather conditions are 2 meters off the ground in open areas with no cover over them. Last I checked, that is not where our tortoises live. Not the adults nor the babies. Regardless of what any of us think happens in the wild, we have living, breathing evidence right in front of us, 24 hours a day, 7 days of every week. These people argue about what happens in the wild until they are blue in the face, all the while ignoring the little stunted, dehydrated, pyramided baby in the dry sandy substrate in the tiny wooden enclosure right in front of their face. Also ignoring pictures of smooth healthy tortoises from people like methos75, MarkW84, and countless others, as if they don't exist. It is some sort of mental disconnect. Willful ignorance. We see this in other areas of society too. Just follow the narrative... Don't think for yourself, and whatever you do, "ignore the man behind that curtain..." It is sad, and this refusal to see the obvious hurts tortoise babies world wide.
Spot on with the three issues listed. I’d offer at least one more. Its clear to me Andy won’t change his mind, no matter the results and he can continue to move the goalpost and thus so will his followers. Pride perhaps? Science should be democratic and experiments repeatable. Its equally valid to say “prove me wrong”, but it doesn’t seem TT will engage in that. While I agree it would be nice to know exactly the biology that is causing pyramiding, its good enough for me to accept the proven prevention.
Thank you Richard.
As a side note: We do now know the biology behind it, and our own @Markw84 has explained it on several occasions.
The CAUSE of Pyramiding
I just posted this on anther thread, but as it developed, I thought the title of that thread took away from the message and was best in a thread of its own titled appropriately. I have come to believe through all my trial and error, all the things I read and study, all the experiments done -...
tortoiseforum.org
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/pyramiding-–-solving-the-mystery.164261/
Pyamiding explained
Could somebody explain where I can see if pyramiding is still happening. My little Sully was started dry and obviously shows signs of pyramiding. Thanks to @Tom It's in an enclosed enclosure with humidity 77-82%. I know the dark brown is where the shell is growing. Am I just looking for that...
tortoiseforum.org
The middle link won't work for some reason, but its the best one. You can search for "Pyramiding - Solving the mystery", and it should come up for you.
Did I miss something in that thread or did bouaboua?Thank you Richard.
As a side note: We do now know the biology behind it, and our own @Markw84 has explained it on several occasions.
The CAUSE of Pyramiding
I just posted this on anther thread, but as it developed, I thought the title of that thread took away from the message and was best in a thread of its own titled appropriately. I have come to believe through all my trial and error, all the things I read and study, all the experiments done -...
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/pyramiding-–-solving-the-mystery.164261/
Pyamiding explained
Could somebody explain where I can see if pyramiding is still happening. My little Sully was started dry and obviously shows signs of pyramiding. Thanks to @Tom It's in an enclosed enclosure with humidity 77-82%. I know the dark brown is where the shell is growing. Am I just looking for that...
The middle link won't work for some reason, but its the best one. You can search for "Pyramiding - Solving the mystery", and it should come up for you.
My understanding of that thread and everything I have learned over all the years is that pyramiding is totally the lack of hydration/humidity.
Bouaboua took it as feeding them every day is bad and the cause, so at that time went to only feeding 3 times a week.
Which just goes to show, no matter how it's explained, people are still going to see what they want to see or the way they take it in. .
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Good stuff! Made for nice lunchtime read!Thank you Richard.
As a side note: We do now know the biology behind it, and our own @Markw84 has explained it on several occasions.
The CAUSE of Pyramiding
I just posted this on anther thread, but as it developed, I thought the title of that thread took away from the message and was best in a thread of its own titled appropriately. I have come to believe through all my trial and error, all the things I read and study, all the experiments done -...
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/pyramiding-–-solving-the-mystery.164261/
Pyamiding explained
Could somebody explain where I can see if pyramiding is still happening. My little Sully was started dry and obviously shows signs of pyramiding. Thanks to @Tom It's in an enclosed enclosure with humidity 77-82%. I know the dark brown is where the shell is growing. Am I just looking for that...
The middle link won't work for some reason, but its the best one. You can search for "Pyramiding - Solving the mystery", and it should come up for you.
He did. I face palmed on that one... "D'OH!"
SasquatchTortoise
Active Member
This is coming off the top of my head, but I believe there is a Blue Planet episode that mentions young sea turtles occasionally hiding around old logs and seaweed (sargassum?) in the middle of the ocean. Sargassum is SUPER dense, and I'm assuming young tortoises also hide in dense impassable thickets where there is a lot of shade, resulting in high humidity. Just an idea, though
I'll tell you a secret: I know where small sea turtles spend their time. At least some of them, some of the time... I use the sea turtles as an example to illustrate that we don't know where these animals go or what they are doing for a large portion of their bay/juvenile lives. You and I know about the vast sargassum mats, but most people don't. Likewise, I think you are right about the baby tortoises too. Process of elimination tells us where they must be hanging out, but there is not much evidence to be found, and not too many eye-witnesses of it.
And well... All you had to say was Facebook.eeek.🤗
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