Rescued Sulcata Pyramiding Help

Tortugatron

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Tortoise Club
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Jun 4, 2015
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Hello everyone!

Been a couple years, a couple kids, and a few moves since I’ve been active on the forum, but we and our tortoises have made it to the promised land and we’re all set up and settled in and I’ve fallen back in the habit of perusing Craigslist for rescue opportunities.

Most of the time when I come across a tortoise that looks to be in poor health and it’s a feasible option, I just buy it from the person. I typically don’t haggle the price or point out the poor husbandry or condition of the animal, as I’ve had people drop back into the ether and pull ads when I start questioning them and then I have no idea what becomes of the tortoise.

I recently came across an ad for two “girl turtles” that turned out to be Sulcatas with pretty serious pyramiding. The pictures weren’t great and when I started asking questions the person mentioned that she’d had the tortoises since they were hatchlings and that now they were five years old. I decided they fit my criteria for rescue and picked them up from her.

Both are pyramiding pretty heavily, but one (Lucy) is worse than other (Ethel). Here’s some photos:

Lucy:
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406F49AD-A18B-4E0B-84C9-63B4A999CB4C.jpeg 347899F5-A064-4822-8A5E-35126BFD1016.jpeg 394C99C7-53D3-4D44-8449-C7C434521718.jpeg 76CB1F98-968C-4690-8810-E97777E844B8.jpeg 4C340321-C1DC-480D-B9FA-40704B26A10B.jpeg

And Ethel:

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Both tortoises are active and displaying the normal voracious appetite and are passing the profound poops that are typical of sulcatas. By all appearances, they seem to in pretty good shape. Despite, you know, their shape.

My question regards Ethel, the less deformed of the two. Ethel’s rear scutes are surprisingly sharp and cut into her legs when she walks. She shows what appear to be evidenced of cut and healed wound on her rear legs from rubbing against those shell daggers. For some reason I can’t get the photos or videos of her rear legs to upload, I’ll try to add some more later.

My question is this: does anybody have any experience with having to modify a shell on an adult tortoise? If so, how do you go about it? I’ve repaired broken shells before, but never had to “adjust” a compete one. I’m in Southern Idaho, and the closest reptile vet to me in is Utah. I plan on taking them out there for some x-rays to make sure there’s no serious issues, but am wondering if there is an at home way to manage shells that go awry like this. Thank you in advance!
 

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Yvonne G

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My gosh. . . I wonder what caused her o grow so crooked.

As to the other one, as a temporary measure you can wrap a strip of duct tape around that sharp edge and then maybe the vet would sand it or clip it to dull the edge.???
 

Tortugatron

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Tortoise Club
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Jun 4, 2015
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Buhl, Idaho
Hi @Yvonne G! Thanks for the response.

Yeah, I applied masking tape to the edge and that took off the majority of its samurai sword-edness. In your experience, are power tools what vets normally use to correct aberrant shell growth?

I mean, I’ve got steady hands and am a whizz with a grinder. I’m fairly certain I could remedy it in no time with no damage to the tort, but the act of taking a power tool to a tortoise’s shell is nearly prohibitively wrong to me on a primal level.
 

KarenSoCal

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My CDT, Chug, had a sharp edge on his nuchal scute. I was concerned about it rubbing his neck. So I took a fine emory board and gently filed it, just enough to not be like a razor.

I see that you would have more to remove, but maybe this would help to just smooth edges.
 
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