The End Of Pyramiding

[Tom]

Thank you so much for information!! I know someone that advocates using a reptile fogger. To me, that is too much humidity and way over the top! These poor torts do live in the tropics!!

In an open topped dry enclosure in a dry heated or air-conditioned home, it might not be too much. Every situation is different. I prefer to prevent the loss of humidity rather than adding more all the time to try to compensate for lost humidity in a dry room. So while I prefer to use closed chambers, humidifiers are not necessarily bad in all situations.

And actually these tortoises DO live in the tropics. Sulcata territory actually straddles the Tropic of Cancer, so some of the native range is in and some out. Sulcata babies hatch during the monsoon season where it is hot, humid and rainy with puddles and marshes in abundance.

 

[Rhonda Matteson]

Thank you for all the great info. Do you do research with Rodney Pettway? He copy and pastes your info on Facebook on several pages. But he never states his source. I would like to share your information but I want to make sure you get credit for it, if that's ok.

 

[Tom]

Thank you for all the great info. Do you do research with Rodney Pettway? He copy and pastes your info on Facebook on several pages. But he never states his source. I would like to share your information but I want to make sure you get credit for it, if that's ok.

Rodney is a friend and always asks permission to post my info. We converse regularly. I don't care about credit. I just want good info to get out there any way possible. I care about tortoises being healthy and bad info being eradicated. I don't care who gets credit for it. You are welcome to copy/paste my info, or message me anytime.

 

[Rhonda Matteson]

Thank you! I like to give credit to the people that have done all work. I do not want to post anything making it sound like the work is mine.

 

[Rhonda Matteson]

How old is Daisy in this pic?

 

[Tom]

How old is Daisy in this pic?

She is right around 4 in that pic, if memory serves...

 

[Rhonda Matteson]

What was her weight?

 

[Tom]

What was her weight?

Don't remember. Probably around 20-25 pounds. She is now around 50 pounds and around 22-23" in length.

 

[Rhonda Matteson]

And how old now? I like seeing other people's torts growth rates

 

[Tom]

And how old now? I like seeing other people's torts growth rates

She hatched in September of '07. So she just turned 8. It should be noted that she hardly grew at all for the first couple of years, due to her dry start. She started growing at a more normal rate right around her third year. By comparison, she lives with Tuck, who was one of my "End of Pyramiding" thread tortoises that hatched in May of 2010. Tuck was started with the "wet" routine and now at four and a half years old, she is almost the same size as Daisy. 21" and 45-50 pounds. I suspect she will be larger than Daisy within the next few months to a year.

 

[russian/sulcata/tortoise]

Tom my Zooboo just turned 3 years old a couple days ago! she/he is 9 inches long but i don't know here weight. where can i buy a scale? also how big will she be by 2016?

 

[Zeko]

Tom my Zooboo just turned 3 years old a couple days ago! she/he is 9 inches long but i don't know here weight. where can i buy a scale? also how big will she be by 2016?

Bigger

 

[russian/sulcata/tortoise]

Bigger

oh thank you so much for you amazing answer!

 

[Zeko]

oh thank you so much for you amazing answer!

No problem. I'm always here for you!

 

[el_ote]

almost got in trouble laughing out loud at work.
lol

 

[leigti]

Tom my Zooboo just turned 3 years old a couple days ago! she/he is 9 inches long but i don't know here weight. where can i buy a scale? also how big will she be by 2016?

Do you have regular people scale at your house? Way yourself holding her and then weigh yourself not holding her and that will tell you how much she weighs.

 

[@ndrew]

She hatched in September of '07. So she just turned 8. It should be noted that she hardly grew at all for the first couple of years, due to her dry start. She started growing at a more normal rate right around her third year. By comparison, she lives with Tuck, who was one of my "End of Pyramiding" thread tortoises that hatched in May of 2010. Tuck was started with the "wet" routine and now at four and a half years old, she is almost the same size as Daisy. 21" and 45-50 pounds. I suspect she will be larger than Daisy within the next few months to a year.

Hey tom go to page 22 in this forum.

 

[Tom]

Its been a while since the last update. I don't have weights, but they are getting big.

Here is Trey enjoying a warm soak:



And here is Tuck enjoying the mud hole with Miss Daisy in the background:

 

[Heardofturtles]

Wow, they look great. Thanks for sharing.

 

[kirsty Johnston]

Interesting that you should say this. I had a conversation with Richard Fife a couple of weeks ago and one of the things he told me about, was spraying the carapace. He felt like that alone would prevent pyramiding, but was not ready to go public with it, until he had done some more research on it.

Yours looks very young in the first pic. Do you know the source? Did the breeder keep it humid? It looks so perfectly smooth, that I'd expect it to be from Richard Fife. Do you know the age? I can only hope mine grow up that smooth.

Another thing that I've been trying to figure out is when, exactly, does pyramiding start. It seems to me that whatever pattern is established in the first few weeks will continue. Several breeders and experienced keepers have told me that if you can get them smooth to 4-6" they won't pyramid no matter what you do after that. By contrast, if they've already started pyramiding at a young age you pretty much can't stop it.

I'd love to know more about your set-up and climate conditions there. What substrate did you use for that fellow? Soaking routine? Water dish, or not? What size and type of enclosure? Sunshine, or not? UV bulbs, or not? Supplements, or not?

Sorry for all the questions, its just so rare to see a year old sulcata so smooth like that. He's got a pretty high dome too.

This has just given me a thought... We all refer to pyramiding as a raised scute. What if its not a raised scute, but a sunken valley between the scutes. If I looked at Daisy from the side and mentally brought all the valley's between her raised scutes up to the level of the tops of her pyramids she'd have a high dome just like that. Maybe pyramiding isn't the overgrowth of the center of the scute, but the UNDERGROWTH of the edges.

This has been one of my major obstacles in eradicating the scourge of pyramiding. No one, including me, seems to be able to really explain the exact mechanism behind it. Is it malformation of the underlying bone? Is it merely the upper keratinous layers? Both, in some combination? I'm left with trying to see what causes or prevents it. ALL the evidence (both scientific and anecdotal) I've seen points to humidity/moisture/hydration or the significant lack thereof.

What's really interesting is that when I obtained my tort he was beginning to pyramid pretty bad. They said that they bathed him once a week.
I soak my tort every day and now I've had him a couple of years you can see where he's grown and his shell is perfectly smoothe... Obviously he still has the initial pyramiding that he had when I 1st got him but the key is where he's grown is smoothe.
I would be totally convinced that soaking everyday if it weren't for the fact that his diet and substrate were equally shocking. Interesting reading! Might take me a while to get through all the other post as well though