Lack of Humidity Directly Corelates to Pyrimiding in All Tortoise Species!

Cat Cat

New Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2017
Messages
8
Location (City and/or State)
Las Vegas, Nevada
http://www.reptilesmagazine.com/Turtles-Tortoises/Turtle-Care/Pyramiding-in-Tortoises/
I found this article online. In whole it's pretty interesting & I think it's definitely worth the read. But more specifically, it clears up any and all confusion about humidity and wether or not your tortoise needs it, no mater the species.
It demonstrates how tortoises who are not supplied with sufficient humidity levels are subject to pyrimiding in their shells.

Capture+_2018-01-12-11-54-46.jpg
]

I know that there are many factors in what causes pyrimiding but this article really goes to show that humidity has a lot to do with it.

I won't get into it anymore myself. The article explains it all a lot better.

I have a desert tortoise so at first it didn't even cross my mind that he would need the humidity in any sort of way. I live in Vegas and humidity here is basically nonexsistant. Luckily I learned otherwise early on in my research...
As a new tortoise owner I don't know everything, but I do research daily and am always trying to learn as much as I can about tortoises and how to improve the quality of my baby's life. The one thing that I constantly find in post after post is people who are skeptic about humidity and it pains me that due to old outdated information or even by innocent lack of knowledge there are still pyrimiding tortoises all over the place.

Okay okay that's enough. Thanks to anyone who reads this & I hope this can help some people.
 

baldegale

Active Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
454
i think this applies to all reptiles when it comes to humidity. everyone says improper humidity correlates to RIs. which i fully disagree with. i have a bearded dragon and its a BIG nono to have their humidity above like 40-50% i kept mine at 70% for a year because of how naturally humid my room is and hes done 100% perfectly fine with no health issues whatsoever.
 

Anyfoot

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2014
Messages
6,309
Location (City and/or State)
UK Sheffield
@Cat Cat Do me a favour and go post that link in every tortoise Facebook group you are a member of. See what happens. This forum has been advocating the wet hydration method for years.
It's why after only 4 yrs of tortoise keeping I'm already decades in front of many stubborn life long keepers out there.
 

wellington

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
49,655
Location (City and/or State)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
http://www.reptilesmagazine.com/Turtles-Tortoises/Turtle-Care/Pyramiding-in-Tortoises/
I found this article online. In whole it's pretty interesting & I think it's definitely worth the read. But more specifically, it clears up any and all confusion about humidity and wether or not your tortoise needs it, no mater the species.
It demonstrates how tortoises who are not supplied with sufficient humidity levels are subject to pyrimiding in their shells.

View attachment 227461
]

I know that there are many factors in what causes pyrimiding but this article really goes to show that humidity has a lot to do with it.

I won't get into it anymore myself. The article explains it all a lot better.

I have a desert tortoise so at first it didn't even cross my mind that he would need the humidity in any sort of way. I live in Vegas and humidity here is basically nonexsistant. Luckily I learned otherwise early on in my research...
As a new tortoise owner I don't know everything, but I do research daily and am always trying to learn as much as I can about tortoises and how to improve the quality of my baby's life. The one thing that I constantly find in post after post is people who are skeptic about humidity and it pains me that due to old outdated information or even by innocent lack of knowledge there are still pyrimiding tortoises all over the place.

Okay okay that's enough. Thanks to anyone who reads this & I hope this can help some people.
Where are you reading post after post people skeptic about humidity? It can't be on this forum, unless your reading very old post. It's been preached over and over probably every day on this forum for years.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

wellington

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
49,655
Location (City and/or State)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
most “care sheets” mislead beginners to believe this. personally where i see it most
That might be. But not here in this forum. The OP makes it sound like she has seen it here, post after post. This forum members have been fighting to get people outside this forum and newbies to listen to what this forum learned years ago. It's so nothing new to us members.
 

Cat Cat

New Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2017
Messages
8
Location (City and/or State)
Las Vegas, Nevada
Where are you reading post after post people skeptic about humidity? It can't be on this forum, unless your reading very old post. It's been preached over and over probably every day on this forum for years.

Maybe skeptic was the wrong word? Besides that, I'm aware I'm not the first person to 'preach' about it.
I posted this because I thought it was a well written article. It delivers the message in a way that more people could understand.. There will always be new tortoises owners.
 

Cat Cat

New Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2017
Messages
8
Location (City and/or State)
Las Vegas, Nevada
This article falls into the category of being and 'oldy but goody'. I few folks here on the forum have written stronger, better such articles since. But published here on TFO. Wink wink @Tom

I'm a fan of Tom and what he has to say about tortoises. & Yvonne G equally so.
(I'm not sure how to tag people)
 

baldegale

Active Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
454
Maybe skeptic was the wrong word? Besides that, I'm aware I'm not the first person to 'preach' about it.
I posted this because I thought it was a well written article. It delivers the message in a way that more people could understand.. There will always be new tortoises owners.

especially around this time of year
 

wellington

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
49,655
Location (City and/or State)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
I'm a fan of Tom and what he has to say about tortoises. & Yvonne G equally so.
(I'm not sure how to tag people)
For the future, this is how you tag people. Put @ in front of the persons name. Then as you type the name it will pop up, click on it and your good
@Tom @Yvonne G
 

Kapidolo Farms

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
5,172
Location (City and/or State)
South of Southern California, but not Mexico
I'm a fan of Tom and what he has to say about tortoises. & Yvonne G equally so.
(I'm not sure how to tag people)


Follow the example use the @ thing and then their avatar name. TFO software will make a small pop-up as you do this (go slow) and then pick from the names. If you complete the name from the keyboard and not the pop-up it does not seem to work.

so @Cat Cat and @Tom and @Yvonne G the trick is to go slow enough for the TFO software to catch what you are doing and place the pop-up on the screen.
 

baldegale

Active Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
454
Follow the example use the @ thing and then their avatar name. TFO software will make a small pop-up as you do this (go slow) and then pick from the names. If you complete the name from the keyboard and not the pop-up it does not seem to work.

so @Cat Cat and @Tom and @Yvonne G the trick is to go slow enough for the TFO software to catch what you are doing and place the pop-up on the screen.

doesnt work on Tapatalk though im pretty sure
 

Neal

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
4,967
Location (City and/or State)
Arizona
http://www.reptilesmagazine.com/Turtles-Tortoises/Turtle-Care/Pyramiding-in-Tortoises/
I found this article online. In whole it's pretty interesting & I think it's definitely worth the read. But more specifically, it clears up any and all confusion about humidity and wether or not your tortoise needs it, no mater the species.
It demonstrates how tortoises who are not supplied with sufficient humidity levels are subject to pyrimiding in their shells.

View attachment 227461
]

I know that there are many factors in what causes pyrimiding but this article really goes to show that humidity has a lot to do with it.

I won't get into it anymore myself. The article explains it all a lot better.

I have a desert tortoise so at first it didn't even cross my mind that he would need the humidity in any sort of way. I live in Vegas and humidity here is basically nonexsistant. Luckily I learned otherwise early on in my research...
As a new tortoise owner I don't know everything, but I do research daily and am always trying to learn as much as I can about tortoises and how to improve the quality of my baby's life. The one thing that I constantly find in post after post is people who are skeptic about humidity and it pains me that due to old outdated information or even by innocent lack of knowledge there are still pyrimiding tortoises all over the place.

Okay okay that's enough. Thanks to anyone who reads this & I hope this can help some people.

I like how @Will phrased it, this is an old but good article. Richard Fife is often cited as one of the pioneers of promoting humidity as a critical component of stopping, or reducing, pyramiding.

The picture collage you included in your post contains a picture of mine, the left-most young leopard tortoise being held. This picture has shown up a couple of other times without proper context, so I feel an obligation to share some further light and knowledge when I see it. I will just copy and paste my post from the last time it showed up. The original thread being here: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/early-examples-of-pyramiding.160295/#post-1521311

General context: The tortoise in the picture hatched out and remained in an incubator for a few days, exposed to humidity consistently in the 80’s. When it was time to remove it from the incubator, it was placed in a closed chamber where it remained until it was sold. The temperature in the chamber was kept relatively high at no lower than 85f, and the humidity was never below 80% and probably averaged slightly higher than that. I monitor temperature and RH using several devices and am very careful that they are adequately calibrated, or otherwise reporting accurate information. This particular group was fed a lot of natural growing foods directly from its enclosure, Mazuri, cactus, other growing things and was only supplemented with grocery store goods irregularly. The group was soaked daily and was provided with sunlight in mild temperatures during the morning hours for short intervals of time. That is the care this tortoise received in general terms. If more information is needed that might help educate the readers of this discussion, please don’t hesitate to ask.

As to what may be the cause of the pyramiding displayed here, let me just copy and paste something I posted a couple of days ago:

Some leopard tortoises will have some "normal" pyramiding. By that, I mean that they will pyramid no matter how much humidity they are exposed to. It is nothing as severe as the tortoise in the first picture, but more like what you see in the second picture...maybe slightly less. It's hard to tell from that angle. I have tested this theory quite extensively, even is much as bumping up RH to about 90%. I continue to test this and am coming up with the same results. I have clutch mates that literally will grow side by side, exposed to the same exact environmental conditions, yet one will show some pyramiding and the other doesn't. As the pyramided siblings grow, the shells tend to naturally smooth out and by the time they have reached adult size, it's not quite so noticeable. To complicate this discussion further, I have raised some completely unrelated clutch-mates to my own, and every single one would grow completely smooth. I'm convinced there is some sort of genetic component to pyramiding in leopards, as another poster here suggested, and I suspect that is what we are observing between the 2nd and 3rd tortoises in this thread. The first is showing some "normal" pyramiding, whereas the 3rd is just about completely smooth. Perhaps there are some behavioral differences that led to this difference between the two, one spent more time in a humid hide than the other, but that doesn't seem logical to me if high humidity is maintained throughout the entire enclosure.

The above was extracted from this thread: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/new-pics-of-our-leopards.160228/

I understand that pyramiding is a problem that has plagued the captive bred populations of tortoises for a long time, but I feel there are still some things we do not understand completely, especially with respect to leopard tortoises. There were clutch-mates of this pictured tortoise that grew completely bowling ball smooth, and some that were more pyramided than the individual pictured. I continue to pursue logical reasons why this might be happening, but I don’t think I will ever know. I know it is not unique to my own clutches, nearly every other leopard tortoise breeder I know has made this same observation.


Like many of us, I have a great concern about promoting best practices for raising tortoises which include those targeted at reducing pyramiding. It is extremely important to me that all examples, pictures, descriptions or anything else that is used to support a best practice, be provided in full context so that we can reach more accurate conclusions. The tortoise in my picture does not show the effects of a tortoise that was raised dry, and since this thread's subject matter emphasized the importance of humidity, I just wanted to clarify that matter.
 
Top