Pyramiding

[waswondering]

I've always heard and believed that pyramiding was a bad thing and meant that the tortoise was unhealthy. However I was thinking about it and I dont know why we say its unhealthy. Like for instance if you put a tortoise in an unfavorable environment and it pyramids you might say that's how we know it's a bad thing... However what if the environment that we labeled as bad is actually good for the tortoise and the pyramiding is a good thing. So my question is how do we know that pyramiding is a bad thing?

 

[Yvonne G]

It's mainly only cosmetic, hence, NOT a bad thing. But on the rare occasion that pyramiding is coupled with metabolic bone disease, it IS a bad thing. Most normally, the pyramiding we see here is just caused by a baby tortoise being raised in conditions that were too dry during his first year of life. This could sometimes mean that his kidneys have been affected. Only time will tell unless you take him to the vet for tests.

Since pyramiding is caused by raising baby tortoises in too dry conditions and that could affect the kidneys, in my opinion there ISN'T a time when being raised thusly could be considered a good thing.