Trials and Errors (Pic Heavy)

Vegas_Leopard

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10 Year Member!
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458
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I've been meaning to do this for quite sometime now, but I wasn't quite confident and satisfied with the knowledge I've accumulated because of my results in the care of my tortoises. Until recently of this year, I began to do more research based on already proven facts, talked to more of the experienced caretakers and document more than I ever have. I finally know what it feels like to feel that what I'm doing for my tortoises is right, at least for the meantime because there will always be more ways to improve. Here are my trials and errors.

My younger brother and I, I believe this was taken in 2003. I'm holding the larger Sulcata, that I purchased from Richard Fife and my younger brother is the child with the spiked up Afro. :p

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First off, my passion for tortoises started from what I'd like to believe was destiny. I was 8 years old (22 years old now) in the front of my house in Santa Ana, CA. climbing a tree when I noticed something coming towards my direction in the distance. Whatever it was, it was walking a long the sewage gutter with oncoming cars. As being a young kid, we normally don't care about our safety and we just do things out of curiosity. Well, I got down from the tree and ran to open my gate, I remember thinking "I hope no one gets to whatever that is before I do" I ran out down the sidewalk and behold it was a tortoise, a CA. Desert Tortoise. I took him in as my own and cared for him with the help of my grandpa, until I started a life in Vegas. Since then I've kept and raised a few different species of tortoises; Mostly Sulcata's adults to babies, Leopards adults to babies, Russian's and Yellowfoot Tortoises. I've also raised a few Red Ear Sliders and Ornate Box Turtles.

The first ever tortoise I bought was a 4" Sulcata, back on May 26, 2002. This tortoise and the many others after, were the start of my trials and errors. You can name or think it and I've probably done it. 20 gallon aquariums, 2'x2'x8" terrariums, Iceberg Lettuce, Romaine Lettuce diet, wrong bulbs, alfalfa pellets, sand, aspen, walnut substrates, reptile carpet, no soaks are all errors to name a few and the worst one of all was I thought I wanted my tortoises to have "spikes". This is what I referred pyramiding to when I was younger. In the beginning most of the tortoises I kept were juvenile, sub-adult and adult tortoises mainly Sulcata's. I was so incredibly fond of their large size, I didn't take that much interest in babies. I had basically skipped the most important part of raising a tortoise. I have bought, sold, traded and kept over 50+ Sulcata's from adults to babies. When I started buying lots of babies to sell/trade for larger ones, I decided to try and raise a few of my own. I thought the knowledge I had of keeping juveniles to adults would apply to babies and boy was I wrong. The care of babies was much more intensive than I had realized. I've had some die, some that didn't grow and some that stopped growing. I was very upset and unsuccessful. When I was a teenager and had more access to the internet, I began to do more research and found out about Richard Fife, and his work on an "environmental chamber", that a long with the successful experiments with Mazuri Tortoise Diet that EJ, had on this product were the stepping stones to some of my new found success. The success that EJ and Richard, provided from using Mazuri Tortoise Diet is the reason I've made that a staple in my tortoises diet. I thank Turtle Times for providing and paving my road to success. Once I had found Tortoise Forum learning had shifted into turbo. I began reading other members threads before I was a member and started soaking in more information like a sponge. Once a member, questions started pouring out like a waterfall. At that time I felt my knowledge base was "good enough" to try raising another baby and the truth was it wasn't. During the time I was raising a baby, I made changes for improvement and long behold it showed.

This was my first approach with babies again after have a couple of years of just doing research. This "experiment" was done back in 2008-2009 before I knew about closed "chambers", sunning pens, varied diets, thermostats and digital meters. I did this based on using a "environmental chamber" (humid hide as we refer to it now) and a strictly Mazuri based diet. One thing I had no idea I was doing right at the time, was spraying directly on the shell. I did this to keep the shell clean around 4+ times a day, I didn't know that it would also help with smooth growth.

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Here's a pair of unrelated 100% Het Ivories I bought from Richard that I raised the same way, but didn't document their growth. :(

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If anyone has questions feel free to ask!

THANKS FOR LOOKING! :D
 

sibi

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Nice pics. It's always good to see how our knowledge translate into better husbandry, huh?
 

Vegas_Leopard

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Thanks you guys! Yeah, I think it's not just for better husbandry, but our overall care techniques. Husbandry, would definitely be on top of the list.
sibi said:
Nice pics. It's always good to see how our knowledge translate into better husbandry, huh?
 

wellington

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Glad you finally got around to sharing this with us. So I am understanding correctly, do you feed a lot of Mazuri, only Mazuri or a varied diet that Mazuri is a small part of?
 

Vegas_Leopard

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10 Year Member!
Joined
Oct 28, 2008
Messages
458
Location (City and/or State)
Las Vegas, NV
With this experiment, I started off with Spring Mix for less than a month before choosing to just feed Mazuri. Now I provide a varied diet, but still strongly push Mazuri. There's day where my Leo's will just be fed it, but most of the time I provide greens, grasses, weeds and I'll have Mazuri as "side dish". That way they'll be able to choose what they want to eat. Sometimes I'll mix it with their varied diet, but they don't normally eat as much compared to when separate it and somedays I'll cycle Mazuri for a week, varied diet for week. Just so they'll get used to it, I feel this helps "spikes" their growth.
wellington said:
Glad you finally got around to sharing this with us. So I am understanding correctly, do you feed a lot of Mazuri, only Mazuri or a varied diet that Mazuri is a small part of?
 
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