By any chance have you changed the calcium availability in the last few months. Although this is a cool/extreme example this is a classic example of what I call calicification of the keritin(sp?) layer of the shell.



Not a disease and nothing to worry about.



>>I hatched this guy out last August, and he has spent most of the time until May of this year living indoors. Now he lives in a pen, sometimes by himself, sometimes with an older sib or the adults. The pen has a substrate of clay soil with some sand. He has a hide box area with a brick floor where he can dry out, but tends to burrow under the bricks and stay in a humid area in the sandy soil at night. I live in Missouri so it is generally humid.

>>

>>I've noticed over the last few weeks that his scutes have developed these curly white lines, as seen in photo below. I've never seen this in any other tortoise of mine, although there is some hint of it in his 3yr old sibling who has spent the last two seasons (spring/summer/fall) living outdoors. One adult is showing some kind of shell damage that is either a dry rot or trauma, but it is not serious and looks nothing like this. The shell on this youngster is firm with no holes, flaking or peeling.

>>

>>Is this disease, or the result of excess humidity, or is it nothing to worry about?

>>

>>P.S. - it doesn't wash off :->

>>
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers

Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

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