No I didn't see it on TFO. I think NAT GEO. My iPad is almost out of juice. If I can find it tomorrow, I will post it. Thanks
Pyramiding question.
- Thread starter Hallbomber
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You guys are great. I will change diet as recommended. My humidity levels are measured towards top of enclosure and they are always around 50 percent or more, and i assume it is higher at tort level. My enclosure is wood and has a mesh top we can cover more often. I will post a pic tomorrow.
I just got myself a warm humidifier made by Holmes. Only 20 bucks and it can run 40 hours on one tank.
wellington said:No I didn't see it on TFO. I think NAT GEO. My iPad is almost out of juice. If I can find it tomorrow, I will post it. Thanks
Just got reminded of this thread when it got moved up. I saw it on animal atlas, sorry, they probably aren't to correct on things
Hallbomber said:
How big is it? Can you measure the height. I would love one that would last that long. I have to fill mine at the least two times a day and I don't even run it at night. Now that I have it outside the pen area, I could go with a bigger one and pipe it in like I am doing now.
Its 16 inches tall, 9 3/4 inches wide. Holmes brand. MODEL: HM5305
Thanks, I'll be doing some measuring and shopping.
So many points to address...
First, for Hallbombers original question. I see two major factors. The first is that you have an open top. 50% humidity, is just not going to do it when you are fighting already existing pyramiding. With the use of a humid hide, 50% might prevent pyramiding, but STOPPING existing pyramiding is a different story. In the Austrian sulcata study that proves that humidity DOES prevent pyramiding, the results got gradually better as humidity approached 80% or higher. I don't think wetter is the solution for you, I think preventing evaporation, heat and humidity loss through the open top is the way to go. Here is the study: http://africantortoise.com/_sulcatadiet2.pdf
Protein is not bad and it does not cause pyramiding. Tortoises need some protein. Just not too much and not animal based for most species.
The second thing is that the pattern for pyramiding is largely established in the first few weeks of life. The only control anyone has over this is to hatch them yourself or be more careful who you buy one from. 91 grams is HUGE for a two month old leopard. Not impossible, but not very likely either. I am guessing that he was older than two months when you got him. In any case, whatever time he spent with the "dry" routine is a major factor in what is happening now. Pyramiding can be stopped, but it is very difficult and it takes a lot of time. There is a HUGE distinction between STOPPING pyramiding and PREVENTING pyramiding.
I have had the best results in closed chamber type set ups. Consistently, the more humid and closed in my enclosure is, the smoother my tortoises grow. I am talking about leopards and sulcatas.
Angela, you know that I like and respect you, but you are not speaking from experience here, right? I appreciate your input, but I just think this means something more to people who have dealt with the frustration and failure of pyramiding and are now finding way to fight it. I will give you a baby sulcata or two to raise so you can see this first hand. If you raise it the way the care sheets you posted suggest, it WILL pyramid. If you raise it the way Barb is raising her leopard it will not. A couple of things about Highfield. He called the humidity thing a "red herring" and compared the people who subscribe to the theory to the people who run around with tinfoil hats yammering on about UFO's. No joke. He really did. Just a few years later he recanted and is now giving much credence to it, based largely from whatever our own Ed Pirog told him. Also remember that when he speaks of "tortoises" and humidity and pyramiding, he is usually talking about Testudo species, where I am usually talking about Leopards and sulcatas. Apples and oranges, if ever there was a case. I have yet to see pictures of any smooth leopards or sulcatas raised by Andy Highfield, but I do respect his efforts and field studies with Testudo species.
Neal is raising some smooth leopards and whatever he is doing is working for him. I can't make it work here for me, though. Neal, yours stay out in the hot, dry AZ sunshine all day, but then they get soaked and sleep indoors in warm humid enclosures with humid hide boxes, right? I have heard you say that you believe that hydration is a big key to pyramiding prevention. Please tell us more about exactly what you do with your babies, because it DOES work and it is different than my methods. I've read the care sheet and its good, but I want to know specifically what you are doing from day to day.
Pyramiding in wild leopards is very debatable and controversial. I have never seen a pyramided leopard in the wild. I saw very few pyramided leopards in Africa at all, and the few I saw were raised indoors in dry enclosures under hot bulbs. If one of the captive raised leopards were shipped to America, the recipient would likely believe that it was a wild caught import directly from Africa and conclude that they do pyramid in the wild. Often the people over there will raise a baby for a while and then turn it loose, since they are in its natural habitat. If a person collecting for an importer came across one of these...
Another factor that I only recently was made aware of: At this years TTPG in Phoenix, two different people gave presentations on the tortoises of Madagascar. Each had some pictures of "wild" radiated tortoises with some mild pyramiding. These "wild" tortoises however, lived in human farmers fields and ate human crops and introduced opuntia cactus and its fruit. The pics looked like they had blood all over their mouths. I, and several others initially thought it was from them eating these spiny cactus until the presenter explained that it was from them eating the bright red fruits. Anyhow, there are a lot of farms in Africa too, and I suspect that these so called "wild" pyramided leopards come from a similar situation. This is all speculation on anyone's part, me included, but it is somewhat of an educated guess. To add more evidence to support my speculation I would also offer up the "bean field" star tortoises of Sri Lanka and India. Same story. Living wild, but eating human crops instead of the normal fare. It seems to me that the excess nutrition coupled with "natural" wild conditions IS enough to make them pyramid. It has long been a tenant of mine that pyramiding occurs with too much growth in the wrong conditions. If a wild tortoise is chowing down at a time in the wild when food is normally sparse, I can see how it could contribute to pyramiding.
This looks like another great discussion to me, and its these discussions that advance our knowledge. Thanks for starting the thread Hallbomber.
First, for Hallbombers original question. I see two major factors. The first is that you have an open top. 50% humidity, is just not going to do it when you are fighting already existing pyramiding. With the use of a humid hide, 50% might prevent pyramiding, but STOPPING existing pyramiding is a different story. In the Austrian sulcata study that proves that humidity DOES prevent pyramiding, the results got gradually better as humidity approached 80% or higher. I don't think wetter is the solution for you, I think preventing evaporation, heat and humidity loss through the open top is the way to go. Here is the study: http://africantortoise.com/_sulcatadiet2.pdf
Protein is not bad and it does not cause pyramiding. Tortoises need some protein. Just not too much and not animal based for most species.
The second thing is that the pattern for pyramiding is largely established in the first few weeks of life. The only control anyone has over this is to hatch them yourself or be more careful who you buy one from. 91 grams is HUGE for a two month old leopard. Not impossible, but not very likely either. I am guessing that he was older than two months when you got him. In any case, whatever time he spent with the "dry" routine is a major factor in what is happening now. Pyramiding can be stopped, but it is very difficult and it takes a lot of time. There is a HUGE distinction between STOPPING pyramiding and PREVENTING pyramiding.
I have had the best results in closed chamber type set ups. Consistently, the more humid and closed in my enclosure is, the smoother my tortoises grow. I am talking about leopards and sulcatas.
Angela, you know that I like and respect you, but you are not speaking from experience here, right? I appreciate your input, but I just think this means something more to people who have dealt with the frustration and failure of pyramiding and are now finding way to fight it. I will give you a baby sulcata or two to raise so you can see this first hand. If you raise it the way the care sheets you posted suggest, it WILL pyramid. If you raise it the way Barb is raising her leopard it will not. A couple of things about Highfield. He called the humidity thing a "red herring" and compared the people who subscribe to the theory to the people who run around with tinfoil hats yammering on about UFO's. No joke. He really did. Just a few years later he recanted and is now giving much credence to it, based largely from whatever our own Ed Pirog told him. Also remember that when he speaks of "tortoises" and humidity and pyramiding, he is usually talking about Testudo species, where I am usually talking about Leopards and sulcatas. Apples and oranges, if ever there was a case. I have yet to see pictures of any smooth leopards or sulcatas raised by Andy Highfield, but I do respect his efforts and field studies with Testudo species.
Neal is raising some smooth leopards and whatever he is doing is working for him. I can't make it work here for me, though. Neal, yours stay out in the hot, dry AZ sunshine all day, but then they get soaked and sleep indoors in warm humid enclosures with humid hide boxes, right? I have heard you say that you believe that hydration is a big key to pyramiding prevention. Please tell us more about exactly what you do with your babies, because it DOES work and it is different than my methods. I've read the care sheet and its good, but I want to know specifically what you are doing from day to day.
Pyramiding in wild leopards is very debatable and controversial. I have never seen a pyramided leopard in the wild. I saw very few pyramided leopards in Africa at all, and the few I saw were raised indoors in dry enclosures under hot bulbs. If one of the captive raised leopards were shipped to America, the recipient would likely believe that it was a wild caught import directly from Africa and conclude that they do pyramid in the wild. Often the people over there will raise a baby for a while and then turn it loose, since they are in its natural habitat. If a person collecting for an importer came across one of these...
Another factor that I only recently was made aware of: At this years TTPG in Phoenix, two different people gave presentations on the tortoises of Madagascar. Each had some pictures of "wild" radiated tortoises with some mild pyramiding. These "wild" tortoises however, lived in human farmers fields and ate human crops and introduced opuntia cactus and its fruit. The pics looked like they had blood all over their mouths. I, and several others initially thought it was from them eating these spiny cactus until the presenter explained that it was from them eating the bright red fruits. Anyhow, there are a lot of farms in Africa too, and I suspect that these so called "wild" pyramided leopards come from a similar situation. This is all speculation on anyone's part, me included, but it is somewhat of an educated guess. To add more evidence to support my speculation I would also offer up the "bean field" star tortoises of Sri Lanka and India. Same story. Living wild, but eating human crops instead of the normal fare. It seems to me that the excess nutrition coupled with "natural" wild conditions IS enough to make them pyramid. It has long been a tenant of mine that pyramiding occurs with too much growth in the wrong conditions. If a wild tortoise is chowing down at a time in the wild when food is normally sparse, I can see how it could contribute to pyramiding.
This looks like another great discussion to me, and its these discussions that advance our knowledge. Thanks for starting the thread Hallbomber.
Tom you are awesome!! The way I am now battling the humidity is having a warm himidifier in the room, due to the loss of humidity even when I keep the enclosure covered, and I dont have the time or money to start all over and build a sealed up enclosure. I will also replace the humid wooden hides with a more efficiently sealed plastic humid hide. I will make sure their humidity is at least 80-90 percent and they always are 80 degrees minimum in enclosure. I am doing everything I can to prevent and hopefully stop any further pyramiding. I will keep you updated on Stella and Ruby's progress.
It sounds like you are doing everything that can be done right now. It takes a long time for it to turn around and really start looking better. Daisy, my four year old sulcata, was the first one I turned around. For two years she lived in a warm swamp and I really didn't see much improvement. She hardly grew, and I really thought I was failing, AGAIN. It was frustrating. Then all of a sudden she hit a huge growth spurt and it was all growing in at the right angle and looking very smooth. Now she has these big smooth scutes with little nobbies right in the middle from the old days. This reminds me... I should do updated photos of her again. Its kind of neat. Her scutes will forever show the record of the actual transition from doing it wrong to doing it right.
Very cool. Lets see some pics.
The pyramided Leopards I saw in the wild were from differant vids, from differant people on safari. These I found doing a Google seach for "Leopard tortoises in the wild". I never thought about people raising them then setting them free in the wild....Sorry for any mis-understandings I may have cause do to ignorance on my part.
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Even if some do pyramid in the wild, that fact that it is such a small minority suggests (to me at least), that it is atypical. Just as there are obese raccoons in the wild... it usually turns out they're eating a lot of human junk food. If the vids are from a safari, they might be fed by humans. Of course, they might just pyramid on their own too, not sure if there's any way to ever conclusive know.
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Perhaps its the fact that in the wild, when it is dry, the tortoises are not growing because food is scarce. 90 grams at 2 months is very big.
Who knows what humidity baby leopards seek in the wild. While in the air humidity is pretty low in most of their range, it is a grassland, and I'm sure they find moister areas under rocks close to the soil.
Who knows what humidity baby leopards seek in the wild. While in the air humidity is pretty low in most of their range, it is a grassland, and I'm sure they find moister areas under rocks close to the soil.
Zamric said:The pyramided Leopards I saw in the wild were from differant vids, from differant people on safari. These I found doing a Google seach for "Leopard tortoises in the wild". I never thought about people raising them then setting them free in the wild....Sorry for any mis-understandings I may have cause do to ignorance on my part.
Oh good heavens. Don't be sorry. We are all just throwing our two cents in. I certainly cannot say with 100% certainty that they do OR don't pyramid under "natural" conditions in the wild. I have just heard many people say that, but I'm not convinced.
EKLC said:
I don't wish to argue just for the sake of arguing, but their range is HUGE and many parts of it are actually very humid most of the time. We had some oppressively hot humid days in Capetown in April. And near the coast where I saw all the wild ones in the Cape Point Preserve, it was cold and windy, but still pretty humid with the ocean breeze and all.
I do think you are right about babies seeking out more humid spots in the drier areas though.
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Tom said:
Sorry, I meant low in the sense of a RH of 40-50%, less than the high humidities that we seek to avoid pyramiding. I feel that a leopard tort in the serengeti would not come in contact with an environment like an enclosure with a humidifier and/or constantly soaked substrate. I am interested in what natural elements keeps them smooth and the characteristics of the hides in which hatchlings spend most of their time.
ME too. So little is actually known about what the hatchlings and babies do in the wild. They are very secretive and rarely ever even seen, much less studied. For many years hatchling care has been based on what we think we know about the environment that the adults come from. Years of failure have taught me that our (by "our", I mean the tortoise community as a whole) speculation about what the hatchlings "need" has been incorrect. Since no one knows what babies do in the wild or where they go, I have chosen to focus on what works, and what does NOT work, in our captive environments. I find it funny when people accuse my methods of being "unnatural", since NOBODY knows what "natural" is. I used to joke that how do we know that sulcatas don't migrate to permanent water sources to lay their eggs, so that their babies are born in a humid environment with a water source for drinking and daily soaking, much the same way that sea turtles return to the beach of their birth for egg laying. My joke became a reality when I met a sulcata researcher from Senegal Africa who told me the only 4 hatchlings that he knows of that have ever been sighted in the wild were all seen in a marshy area, during the rainy season. Might be the same thing for hatchling leopards.
Question: Could pyramiding be caused by the individuals need to heat/cool itself rapidly due to enviromental conditions of it's formative years? Thus making it adaptive to most regions...i.e. more pyramiding for cooler, dryer areas and less pyramided in hot, humid areas?
What effect would this theory have on a Tortoise that was raised in one Temprate Zone for many years, then moved to another?
What effect would this theory have on a Tortoise that was raised in one Temprate Zone for many years, then moved to another?
Tom said:
tortuga_please said:
About leopard tortoises pyramiding in the wild. Do we really know that it is a small minority?
Tom, your experience was solely in South Africa correct?
As stated, my observations have been that South African leopards appear to be less prone to pyramiding than those from the warmer regions. And, my theory is that it has to do with hibernation, when they burrow in the ground and their shells rub against the walls of the burrows.
I am convinced that pyramiding does occur naturally in the wild in those warmer climates...not to the extremes that we see here of course. That conviction is based on pictures and others observations, which I admit isn't all that substantial. Because, as you implied, the pictures I have seen may not be true wild tortoises, and I have learned from hard experience not to rely too heavily on the experiences of others. But I am hard pressed to find any pictures of, or speak with anyone who has actually seen completely smooth wild non-South African leopards.
Tom said:
It is difficult for me to provide too many specifics and details about what I do because a lot of the smaller, day to day stuff I do is so random and I change things around frequently. Even certain aspects in my caresheet are different than what I am currently doing. The core aspects are consistent...making sure they have access to good lighting, food, and are kept at the right temperatures. What varies is how much food they have access too, how often they are actually given water, and the humidity levels in their humid hides. You are right that I keep them outside during the day in the hot dry AZ sun. During the summer I will soak them everyday before bringing them inside, but in the winter I am going every other day or sometimes two. I don't bring them into humid enclosures. The humidity in the enclosures is whatever it is ambient here. The babcocki and stars do have access to humid hides in the indoor enclosures, but I do not force them in there.
Again I have to say, that I remain a skeptic on how much, if at all, humidity plays a role in smooth shell development. I have tried the high humid method, but I can't get it to work in my lifestyle so I went back to my old methods which proved to work. The only difference is that I keep a humid hide, because I don't really have the time or focus right now to prove any theories...so to be on the safe side, I provide them with what appears to be a benefit to them. As you know, my skepticism comes from my previous experience raising hatchling in the early and mid 2000's before humidity was discussed anywhere really. My experiences were shared with pictures here: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-Hydration-Vs-Humidity-Adults-Only#axzz1lYMk96Er
On the one sulcata, you can see very clearly where the pyramiding ended, and where the smooth growth starts. These tortoises were kept outside during the day and inside on hay and dry peat moss at night. They were kept well hydrated though, and that's when I was convinced that it was all to do with internal hydration and it seems in my husbandry to remain the key, even to this day.
Another reason I remain skeptical on the theory that high humidity is critical, is I see tortoises that are raised in high humid climates (Florida, Hawaii, parts of Asia) with severe pyramiding. I have a pair of adult tortoises that were raised outdoors in Maui that have some significant pyramiding.
All this has caused me to believe that pyramiding is a very complex thing, to the extent even that there are different types of pyramiding. I hope in my life time I can help by placing some of the pieces together. For now, whatever I and others are doing appear to be working even though we have different husbandry methods, working on the "why it's working" will take some time and analysis.
Zamric said:
That's a good question, one I don't have an answer too. A good member, Balboa, brought up that questions awhile ago and did some experimenting on it. You can see his thread here:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-Pyramiding-as-an-Environmental-Response#axzz1lbclQYvR
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