Leopard tortoise weight/growth rate

zovick

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Thanks for your input, Bill. I was referring to the eggshell for the hatchling in the context of the microbe load it may carry more than for calcium content. But, yes - great way to recycle that calcium!!

It seems I didn't pick up on that beneficial microbe load on the egg shells as your reason for feeding them. Upon my first reading of the post I thought it was meant for the calcium they contained, but since you mentioned microbes, it started me thinking. There could also be the possibility of bacteria from outside of the mother in the soil or nesting medium, plus parasite eggs or oocysts from the mother on those same egg shells along with any beneficial bacteria.

Just playing the devil's advocate there.
 
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Tom

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Another consideration I have been studying more and more...

Gut flora and the microbe balance is extremely important to overall health and growth. I just read a few studies this past week where millions of dollars are being spent on analyzing the poop of top level athletes for the microbe balance. The results are simply amazing. Without the right balance, they simply cannot preform at the same level of others. This applies at a very basic level to simple health and growth, not just recovery and performance at peak levels.

In the wild, young tortoises injest eggshell that is covered by mucous from the mother. Hatchlings also injest poop from the mother as well as being surrounded by dirt in the nest the mother watered down extensively in digging the nest. I believe that does a ton towards beginning to establish the proper gut flora and microbe levels in a hatchling.

I know @Tom and I put eggshells from the mother in the brooder box for hatchlings to nibble on when first hatched. I also puposely expose some of my hatchlings to the mother's poop in bits. We are helping that gut flora get established.

I can't help but believe that some of the common problems with "failure to grow" also can come from too sterile an environment for the hatchling that is never exposed to these natural sources of beneficial and needed microbes. Some breeders wash the eggs before placing in the incubator. The hatchlings are then put in a clean new area to start their life. Many are sold and live in a new area by themelves with never any exposure to the possible sources of beneficial microbes needed for even basic organ fuction.

I believe @zovick is a believer in providiing beneficial bacteria - probiotic for reptiles.

There may be a great value here we are missing??? Thoughts??

I don't disagree with you Mark, and the topic is worth exploring, but there are some observations that contradict this theory.

Do you remember when they started selling the "starter" bacteria for people to put in their fishtanks to "head start" the nitrite cycle and speed up the slow process? At that time I was literally elbow deep in fish tanks, and I thought this was an amazing idea! After using the product and seeing no discernible difference, I decided to set up identical tanks and do an experiment. I did one tank my conventional way with no added "biological stuff" except the light fish load, another with the new product and another using all the water from an established and cycled tank. I did this multiple times with multiple bacterial seeding products, and in both fresh and salt tanks. There was no discernible difference. Water parameters took the same 6 weeks to stabilize. I'd get low nitrate readings from the tanks with the "used" water, but nitrates wouldn't increase until about 5-6 weeks had gone by, which was when the other two tanks would start showing slight nitrate increases. Imagine that! Me doing side by side experiments!

Back to tortoises: Because of my practice of leaving the eggs dirty and letting hatchlings nibble not their shells, I think any baby that I hatch should be eliminated from contention in this next bit. Lots of breeders start their babies the "sterile" way, and at least some percentage of their babies develop a healthy gut flora and fauna and they thrive and grow just as well as any of my babies with no "seeding" of any kind. I think that just like my "sterile" fish tanks with nothing added, all of these beneficial bacteria exist in the environment, and given the correct living conditions, the tortoises all pick them up and flourish whether or not we intentionally seed them with these bacteria.

My wife is into the whole holistic and alternative medicine stuff. Some of it really works, like when she administers Arnica cream after a dog bite or motocross crash. The difference is astounding. She started making me take some fancy pro-biotics on a daily basis, and I see no difference. I've been taking them for a couple of years, and there is no change in anything. Sometimes I'll stop taking them for a few weeks just to see what happens and… nothing happens.

Overall, my opinion on this particular matter, based on what I've seen (Which is admittedly limited.) is that these products will do no harm, and in some cases might offer some benefit. But in my experience, they aren't the panacea they are made out to be.

Now I'd really like to hear the conversation where the scientists asked for the athlete's poo. "Uh… excuse me... Mr. Bolt? Can I ask you something…"
 

Tom

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More notes for the thread: All of my sulcata Mom's deposit poop in each nest they dig. I know because I find it with my hand every time I dig up a nest.

Don Williams of CTTC and desert tortoise fame has a video that he showed me of a hatchling DT emerging from its nest. It walked straight over to a dried up pile of its mother's poo and began munching away. We are talking about seconds after emerging.
 

Markw84

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It seems I didn't pick up on that beneficial microbe load on the egg shells as your reason for feeding them upon my first reading of the post, but since you mentioned that, it started me thinking. There could also be the possibility of parasite eggs or oocysts from the mother on those same egg shells along with any beneficial bacteria.

Just playing the devil's advocate there.
Agree completely. However, some "parasites" are good and beneficial. IF the mother is good and healthy, I believe what she would be passing on - the good would far outweigh the possible bad. Where else can a hatchling in captivity get exposure to the needed microbe starters? So many of us keep several speciemens and microbe exposure is much easier. I can easily see a breeder being cautious and clean, and then selling a lone hatchling to a new keeper who puts it in an environment that never has many of these microbes - creating a recipe for a struggling hatchling.
 

Markw84

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I don't disagree with you Mark, and the topic is worth exploring, but there are some observations that contradict this theory.

Do you remember when they started selling the "starter" bacteria for people to put in their fishtanks to "head start" the nitrite cycle and speed up the slow process? At that time I was literally elbow deep in fish tanks, and I thought this was an amazing idea! After using the product and seeing no discernible difference, I decided to set up identical tanks and do an experiment. I did one tank my conventional way with no added "biological stuff" except the light fish load, another with the new product and another using all the water from an established and cycled tank. I did this multiple times with multiple bacterial seeding products, and in both fresh and salt tanks. There was no discernible difference. Water parameters took the same 6 weeks to stabilize. I'd get low nitrate readings from the tanks with the "used" water, but nitrates wouldn't increase until about 5-6 weeks had gone by, which was when the other two tanks would start showing slight nitrate increases. Imagine that! Me doing side by side experiments!

Back to tortoises: Because of my practice of leaving the eggs dirty and letting hatchlings nibble not their shells, I think any baby that I hatch should be eliminated from contention in this next bit. Lots of breeders start their babies the "sterile" way, and at least some percentage of their babies develop a healthy gut flora and fauna and they thrive and grow just as well as any of my babies with no "seeding" of any kind. I think that just like my "sterile" fish tanks with nothing added, all of these beneficial bacteria exist in the environment, and given the correct living conditions, the tortoises all pick them up and flourish whether or not we intentionally seed them with these bacteria.

My wife is into the whole holistic and alternative medicine stuff. Some of it really works, like when she administers Arnica cream after a dog bite or motocross crash. The difference is astounding. She started making me take some fancy pro-biotics on a daily basis, and I see no difference. I've been taking them for a couple of years, and there is no change in anything. Sometimes I'll stop taking them for a few weeks just to see what happens and… nothing happens.

Overall, my opinion on this particular matter, based on what I've seen (Which is admittedly limited.) is that these products will do no harm, and in some cases might offer some benefit. But in my experience, they aren't the panacea they are made out to be.

Now I'd really like to hear the conversation where the scientists asked for the athlete's poo. "Uh… excuse me... Mr. Bolt? Can I ask you something…"
I love the dialogue!!

I too did some side by sides on nitrifying bacteria. I did not see results with store bought "starter bacteria". However, I saw dramatic results using the same old filter pads from an established filter and placing them in the new filter on the new tank and on new ponds. Specific bacteria loads already established for my unique area, water chemistry, temperatures, etc, etc. My point is that we are find microbe loads are quite specific in the way they develop and specialize. What works best is introducing microbes that are already established for that specific circumstance. A mother's poop. (or breast milk). An eggshell from the mother. Even poop from another tortoise of the same clade.

Our bodies have 23 pairs of chromosomes - so 46 chromosome that contain about 22,000 genes. That is what makes us who we are. HOWEVER - there are several million genes inside us that are all the different microbes that are also necessary for us to live. There are microbes that eat lactic acid. In endurance runners this load becomes huge and allows them to function at levels others cannot. There are microbes that break down most all food items to molecules the body can actually use. Microbes that allow some food items to become useful and not dangerous to some species while other species without that would find that food useless or even harmful. Here is an excerpt from an article I recently read:

In adult humans, bone mineral density is 50 to 80 percent heritable (9). For quite some time, heritable traits were thought to be only passed on from parent to offspring through DNA. We now know that vertical transmission of microbes occurs at birth—as a baby passes through the mother’s birth canal, he or she acquires crucial microbes that shape the composition of their gut microbiota (5). It’s possible that in addition to the heritable traits encoded by our own genetics, additional determinants of our bone health are acquired based on our microbial inheritance.

So, there is evidence showing that the need to acquire the correct microbial balance for a particular species is certainly a consideration.
 

Sticky Feets

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Another consideration I have been studying more and more...

Gut flora and the microbe balance is extremely important to overall health and growth. I just read a few studies this past week where millions of dollars are being spent on analyzing the poop of top level athletes for the microbe balance. The results are simply amazing. Without the right balance, they simply cannot preform at the same level of others. This applies at a very basic level to simple health and growth, not just recovery and performance at peak levels.

In the wild, young tortoises injest eggshell that is covered by mucous from the mother. Hatchlings also injest poop from the mother as well as being surrounded by dirt in the nest the mother watered down extensively in digging the nest. I believe that does a ton towards beginning to establish the proper gut flora and microbe levels in a hatchling.

I know @Tom and I put eggshells from the mother in the brooder box for hatchlings to nibble on when first hatched. I also puposely expose some of my hatchlings to the mother's poop in bits. We are helping that gut flora get established.

I can't help but believe that some of the common problems with "failure to grow" also can come from too sterile an environment for the hatchling that is never exposed to these natural sources of beneficial and needed microbes. Some breeders wash the eggs before placing in the incubator. The hatchlings are then put in a clean new area to start their life. Many are sold and live in a new area by themelves with never any exposure to the possible sources of beneficial microbes needed for even basic organ fuction.

I believe @zovick is a believer in providiing beneficial bacteria - probiotic for reptiles.

There may be a great value here we are missing??? Thoughts??

Mark that's why I'm still hopeful for my little guy. He was hatched from the ground. The breeder saw a hatchling Leo walking across his yard one day and eventually found a clutch that he never discovered. I don't know specifically if all the babies from that clutch were already hatched by the time he found the eggs but I'm hoping that he got some poop in his system before he was collected
 

Markw84

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Mark that's why I'm still hopeful for my little guy. He was hatched from the ground. The breeder saw a hatchling Leo walking across his yard one day and eventually found a clutch that he never discovered. I don't know specifically if all the babies from that clutch were already hatched by the time he found the eggs but I'm hoping that he got some poop in his system before he was collected

A ground hatch would certainly be good for microbe exposure but potentially bad for early dehydration.
 

Tom

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We now know that vertical transmission of microbes occurs at birth—as a baby passes through the mother’s birth canal, he or she acquires crucial microbes that shape the composition of their gut microbiota (5). It’s possible that in addition to the heritable traits encoded by our own genetics, additional determinants of our bone health are acquired based on our microbial inheritance.

So, there is evidence showing that the need to acquire the correct microbial balance for a particular species is certainly a consideration.

What about C-section babies? Is there any study that shows they are somehow at a disadvantage since they did not acquire these microbes from the birth canal?
 

Markw84

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What about C-section babies? Is there any study that shows they are somehow at a disadvantage since they did not acquire these microbes from the birth canal?
Yes. Quite a bit of study now. All fairly recent. My little sister is quite involved in all of this in her research and I get pretty interesting stuff.

Here's one excerpt:

"A baby's microbiome — something that will shape their health for the entirety of their life — starts forming as soon as the birth process begins. And scientists are learning that how exactly a baby is born has a big impact on the the way its microbiome functions.

Human microbiomes are always in flux, influenced by environment and genes. A team of researchers says babies pick up bacteria as they pass through the birth canal. But what about those infants delivered by C-section?

"We still don't know what are the health consequences but it sounds like [they're] adaptive," says Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine, "Every time you you cheat nature there seems to be a collateral cost that we pay."

Babies who are born naturally pick up bacteria from their mother's birth canal. But babies who are born via C-section don't get their first bout of bacteria from their mothers. Instead, they pick it up from the room they're born in.

"When a C-section baby is born and is not exposed to vaginal fluids what they pick up is skin, like bacteria, human skin," says Dominguez-Bello, "We did a study swabbing the operating room, which normally is incredibly clean ... but there are some sites like the walls of the operating room, the ventilation grids, the top of the huge lamps that the surgeons have. If you swab there there is some dust. We did studies of that dust and we demonstrated there are skin flakes there and those flakes have bacteria so we think the built environment is feeding the newborn that is born by C-section."

When C-section babies miss the chance to pick up bacteria from their mother's birth canal, they aren't exposed to some bacteria that help them digest milk. Dominguez-Bello wanted to see if there was a way to restore the missing bacteria.

She and her team conducted an experiment in which they placed a tampon-like gauze in the birth canal of C-section mothers. Then, after the C-section baby was delivered, they exposed the baby to the gauze.

"The first thing we did within the first two minutes after they cut the umbilical was swab the baby's mouth and then the face and rest of the body," Dominguez-Bello says.

As it turns out, the babies exposed to their mother's bacteria with these experiments had much of their microbiome restored."

So, no matter how clean we keep our tortoise nurseries, there is still some substantial microbe picked up to start the system. However, that would be different than would be ingested with eggshell or mother's poo. And it takes time, so a hatchling sold and sent where not tortoise microbiome existed is at a severe disadvantage it would seem.
 

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