Box Turtle and Tortoise Discussion :: Tortoise questions.. I HAVE A LOT OF THEM

[Lauri]

Ok, I have a turtle, her name is Sofía. I bought her ten years ago, but I have no idea how old she is, she has grown a lot since then, so I'm guessing she was a baby when I got her.

The veterinary told me she was a female. He also told me to feed her only vegetables. Lettuce and tomatoes is what she likes the most, so I feed her that, mostly lettuce. The vet told me she was fine, she was growing well. But I went online and I found out she was pyramiding and that it was a bad thing! the vet never told me about that! So, everything I find about pyrimiding says that you should cut off your pet of proteins, but I don't give her any!! I live in Colombia, so she gets plenty of sunlight whenever she needs, so it's not a sunlight problem. I don't know what to do about that, if you have any ideas I'd appreciate them, since the vet doesn't know anything and her pyramiding is realli bad.

The other thing is that I was hoping you could help me figuring what type of tortoise she is. I think she is a red foot turtle, but I'm not sure.

Here are a few pictures of Sofía

http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/6949/sofadejndoseacariciarbk2.jpg

http://img356.imageshack.us/img356/7056/sofatomandoelsolrw3.jpg

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/6606/sofacomiendolechugaxz8.jpg

Please, I really need help. Thanks in advance for anything you can tell me

[zoologist]

Wow, thats a beautiful tortoise, but i'm not sure anyone can give too much insight to your problem. Ya see, the majority of us just have aquatic red ear sliders, and a few of us dabble in box turtles, but i'm not sure anyone has a redfoot tortoise.

you may want to try a different forum, more specified towards other species such as turtletimes.com or austinsturtlepage.com.


good luck!

[RESnTX]

My sister has a cherryhead redfoot and her shell looks exactly the same. The herp specialist told her the shell looked fine. The pyramiding is natural for redfoots but not for redears. Terryo has a baby redfoot and Tenendora has 2. Those are the only people here that have them, I think.

[jenaero]

yep, it's a redfoot. Pyramiding is not normal for these tortoises. Here's a link to a care sheet from Austin's Turtle Page. The diet should consist of much more than what she's getting now. http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/cs-redfoot.htm

[Terryo]

Pyramiding in Redfoots is now recently be atributed to lack of humidity. Also her diet is not good at all for a redfoot. Go to this site and read all you can on her care...then ask questions. I have a Redfoot and this is the care sheet that I have been going by since I got him.
http://redfoots.com/smf/index.php

http://redfoots.com/smf/index.php?topic=468.0

[Lauri]

Thank you so much for your answers! I will try everything you say.. It can be for lack of humidity.
Thank you so much!