Pyramiding of Shell (humid hides)

[Lynnie Lou]

The advice here is second to non.

What else apart from hydration, or lack of, would you say contributes to pyramidding of the shell?

[Suze65]

Originally Posted by Lynnie Lou

The advice here is second to non.

What else apart from hydration, or lack of, would you say contributes to pyramidding of the shell?

Hydration plays a big part in smooth shell growth, but overall a combination of conditions are important, so as well as good hydration , this will mean soaking hatchlings daily, older ones once or twice weekly, providing a humid hide, keeping substrate moist, available water, you will also need to provide the right supplement, calcium powder daily, vitamin D3 twice a week, temps 30/32 c, so they can digest their food well. I personally don't restrict food, it is my belief that the right conditions for growth are what matters, not how fast or slow they grow.
And of course the right nutrition , weeds and flowers when available. In the months when weeds are scarce, I feed florette and pre alpin and nutrazu once a week. Almost forgot to mention uv light, but that's obvious .

[Lynnie Lou]

Thanks for the advice lovely. I'm just a bit worried my Hermanns are growing too fast, I was starting to think I was feeding them too much. I only ever feed weeds and flowers. I have a dish of limestone flour available at all times and you often see them in it stuffing their faces. Nutrabol twice a week, cuttlefish and a combined bulb for uv and heat, humid hide and I mist the coco coir every morning. Plus daily soaks. Who knew they could be such hard work? lol

[Suze65]

Originally Posted by Lynnie Lou

Thanks for the advice lovely. I'm just a bit worried my Hermanns are growing too fast, I was starting to think I was feeding them too much. I only ever feed weeds and flowers. I have a dish of limestone flour available at all times and you often see them in it stuffing their faces. Nutrabol twice a week, cuttlefish and a combined bulb for uv and heat, humid hide and I mist the coco coir every morning. Plus daily soaks. Who knew they could be such hard work? lol

Yes, mine take up quite a lot of my time. I don't bother misting any more, it's fairly useless , I just water, when it needs it, in the winter with the heating on that can be alternate days. What do their shells look like, can you post a pic ?

[Lynnie Lou]

There's a pic I posted the other day. Look up my recent posts. X

[SuziRed71]

Ive been using the humid hide for a long time now.. Just for my hatchlings .. I use a different method in my tort house .. More of that in a while ... I've used a plastic tub and lid with a door way cut in one side and moist sphagnum moss .. I keep it right at the basking end of the table ..its sprayed daily to keep the moisture up .. I am the type that is constantly questioning my husbandry techniques. As the years have progressed and the discussions and research has evolved, deep in the pit of my stomach I feel humidity has more to do with pyramiding than anything else.. Not just from my own breeding programmes but from torts that I have taken in in various states of deformity.The more pyramided torts are the ones kept in way too dry an environment. I've seen med torts raised in ignorance fed entirely on shop bought pellets and tomatoes etc as smooth as a pebble.. ( the shells may be nice but who knows what lurks inside!) .
Now recently, my humidity provisions have taken on another form.. For a while I have taken to pouring the babies bath water beneath the basking area and around the humid hide. My logic telling me that it would create more atmospheric humidity as is present in the med.. I still spray down the whole table so that it's like the surface dew. The hatchlings all started to bury themselves under the humid hide exclusively not even giving their humid chamber a second look. Then I had an experience with a baby Margie who seemed to have a frightening reaction to the fresh change of moss in the humid hide .. Whether there were chemical traces in the dehydrated block who can say but through a process of elimination this was the only difference between my table and the table she had been raised in at her breeders. I now use a large plastic reptile cave inspired by her breeder, instead of the humid hide box and keep the soil very moist and turn the soil daily .. I think this does the job much more effectively than the old moss box.. ��

[SuziRed71]

For my adults , I have adapted the nesting area method and periodically dig holes and pour pretty hot water in .around the areas that they like to sleep. So that they can dig down if they choose and get the type of humidity/ moisture present in 'real ground' when you dig a hole .. Due to the depth of the soil in my tort house and constant heat/warmth this seems to work suprisingly well and really helps to even out smooth growth new growth in those that have had less humid starts in their lives with previous owners

[vikki]

I have read that pyramiding could be mainly caused by heat lamps due to the concentrated nature of the heat on the top of the shell, my guess is that this again is because it is so drying and even with damp substrate it will not generally compensate for the lack of moisture at top of shell level under lamps, as most of us keep our young tortoises in more than older tortoises this tends to occur during crucial growth phases, alot of info on this is on the tortoise trust info pages, but again just another opinion. It does always amaze me when you see tortoises for sale on various websites who have obviously been kept in what should be completely the wrong environment and fed all the wrong foods but their shells look great, ok we don't know that they are healthy but despite living in the complete opposite of what is currently thought to be the correct environment they look great - mystery!!!

[Lynnie Lou]

Originally Posted by SuziRed71

Ive been using the humid hide for a long time now.. Just for my hatchlings .. I use a different method in my tort house .. More of that in a while ... I've used a plastic tub and lid with a door way cut in one side and moist sphagnum moss .. I keep it right at the basking end of the table ..its sprayed daily to keep the moisture up .. I am the type that is constantly questioning my husbandry techniques. As the years have progressed and the discussions and research has evolved, deep in the pit of my stomach I feel humidity has more to do with pyramiding than anything else.. Not just from my own breeding programmes but from torts that I have taken in in various states of deformity.The more pyramided torts are the ones kept in way too dry an environment. I've seen med torts raised in ignorance fed entirely on shop bought pellets and tomatoes etc as smooth as a pebble.. ( the shells may be nice but who knows what lurks inside!) .
Now recently, my humidity provisions have taken on another form.. For a while I have taken to pouring the babies bath water beneath the basking area and around the humid hide. My logic telling me that it would create more atmospheric humidity as is present in the med.. I still spray down the whole table so that it's like the surface dew. The hatchlings all started to bury themselves under the humid hide exclusively not even giving their humid chamber a second look. Then I had an experience with a baby Margie who seemed to have a frightening reaction to the fresh change of moss in the humid hide .. Whether there were chemical traces in the dehydrated block who can say but through a process of elimination this was the only difference between my table and the table she had been raised in at her breeders. I now use a large plastic reptile cave inspired by her breeder, instead of the humid hide box and keep the soil very moist and turn the soil daily .. I think this does the job much more effectively than the old moss box.. ��

Thanks for that reply. Interesting read and like you, I'm sure pyramidding is all down to too dry a condition in the Tortoise table. I mist daily, have the humid hide and soak them daily, which they love. I have a huge water dish near the basking light and it makes the water slightly warm, they love to just sit in the water and bask. lol One falls asleep in it.

[sandy]

Originally Posted by SuziRed71

Ive been using the humid hide for a long time now.. Just for my hatchlings .. I use a different method in my tort house .. More of that in a while ... I've used a plastic tub and lid with a door way cut in one side and moist sphagnum moss .. I keep it right at the basking end of the table ..its sprayed daily to keep the moisture up .. I am the type that is constantly questioning my husbandry techniques. As the years have progressed and the discussions and research has evolved, deep in the pit of my stomach I feel humidity has more to do with pyramiding than anything else.. Not just from my own breeding programmes but from torts that I have taken in in various states of deformity.The more pyramided torts are the ones kept in way too dry an environment. I've seen med torts raised in ignorance fed entirely on shop bought pellets and tomatoes etc as smooth as a pebble.. ( the shells may be nice but who knows what lurks inside!) .
Now recently, my humidity provisions have taken on another form.. For a while I have taken to pouring the babies bath water beneath the basking area and around the humid hide. My logic telling me that it would create more atmospheric humidity as is present in the med.. I still spray down the whole table so that it's like the surface dew. The hatchlings all started to bury themselves under the humid hide exclusively not even giving their humid chamber a second look. Then I had an experience with a baby Margie who seemed to have a frightening reaction to the fresh change of moss in the humid hide .. Whether there were chemical traces in the dehydrated block who can say but through a process of elimination this was the only difference between my table and the table she had been raised in at her breeders. I now use a large plastic reptile cave inspired by her breeder, instead of the humid hide box and keep the soil very moist and turn the soil daily .. I think this does the job much more effectively than the old moss box.. ��

Just goes to show how differently we can keep smooth tortoises growing with different methods.
I have never ever used a humid hide, I also have not sprayed any enclosures inside. Yet I have still grow smooth tortoises. I have been breeding (now stopped) for over 30yrs.