Pyramiding?

[TheWarTortoise]

I've had my Leopard Tortoise, Scutes, for about 3 years now. Wondering if his pyramiding is alright for his age? (He's 3)

I try to spray down his enclosure with mist 3 times daily. Sorry for the blurry/big pictures

 

[diamondbp]

His pyramiding is what typical leopard pyramiding looks like. It's a 5 on the 1-10 severity scale IMO.

It's still early enough to allow smoother growth to come in if the right changes are made but he will show his current pyramiding forever. It looks as if his heat lamp is too close to the top of his shell which will make it much more difficult to correct his growth. That's why most leopards have highly pyramided vertebral scutes because the vertebral scutes tend to dry out the most from being to close to the heat source.

If you could provide pictures of his entire set up we could make recommendations to stop the pyramiding in its tracks.

Here is two example of leopards that were highly pyramided for their age but after a year of growth in a proper enclosure have begun new smooth growth between the scutes.

 

[Tom]

He is very pyramided. Not the worse I've seen, but I would not consider this "alright".

Misting the enclosure does very little as it just evaporates in a few minutes. You need to capture and hold in humidity.

Here is the care sheet and info to stop this:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-raise-a-healthy-sulcata-or-leopard-version-2-0.79895/

You need a closed chamber.