Weight Question

[JohnathanO]

Hi, So I got a young Leopard tortoise on October 4th and his weight was 52g, His weight has jumped to 70g as of a couple of days ago but when I weighed him tonight it had dropped to 66g.

The woman I bought him from said he was 7 months old when I bought him from her, So he's roughly 8 months old now,

I was just wondering if his weight is ok for his age or should he weigh more?

and is it normal for the weight to drop a couple of grams every so often? ( I assume it is but I just wanted to be clear)

 

[Tom]

That's pretty normal. I usually weigh mine after soaks and breakfast, but one day, after not weighing for a couple of weeks, I weighed them after soaks but before breakfast and all of them had lost weight. The next day I weighed them again after soaks and breakfast and they were all much heavier than the weight from two weeks prior. In other words every thing was just fine and they had continued gaining weight just fine. I didn't realize that they were eating 25-30 grams of food at a sitting.

Anyhow, just be sure to weigh at the same point in the routine every time. A loss of a few grams can be accounted for if they took a big poo or ate a light amount that day. Just watch the over all trend over time.

 

[JohnathanO]

Thanks Tom,

I do try to weigh him at the same point every time, I just didn't know if dropping a couple of grams was something to worry about

I took your advice and started feeding mazuri twice a week and Ive been spraying him several times a day and he's eating alot more then when I first got him.

 

[Seiryu]

It's normal for them to lose some weight occasionally. There's no way you can weigh them under the same circumstances each week.

I try to weigh mine before I feed, before I soak or spray them every Monday.

Well, sometimes they poop in front of me, sometimes they don't as well. Sometimes they decide it's time for a drink just before too, well I am surely not going to stop them just to get a better accurate weight .

I would look over a couple of weeks (2-3) to see if they are still gaining.

An example of mine was. Sif (7 month old Leo) weighed about 80g one week. She then gained about 9 grams over the week bringing her to 89. Then she lost 2 grams the next week. But for the overall 2 weeks, she gained 7 grams or 3.5g a week.

If I see them gaining huge chunks of weight for their age, I will try to not give quite as much food as well, so their weight gains aren't crazy.

 

[terracolson]

I weight them monthly at this one. My babies are a year. As long as they are growing, i wouldnt worry to much.

I have a chart if you want to see it. just pm me.

 

[JohnathanO]

Thanks everyone.

Im pretty paranoid since I got the tortoise at 7 months old, I don't really know how the tortoise was previously cared for. I would have rather gone to a breeder to get a hatchling but there arent too many of those in Ontario.

Thank you for the chart terracolson.

 

[Tom]

I love Terra's charts.

 

[JohnathanO]

Yeah, I'm happy I have it now, I know weight has a lot of variable but at least it gives me an idea of where I'm at.

I'm glad people are so helpful here, another forum I'm on people enjoy ripping into each other for asking questions.

 

[terracolson]

Glad it helped!