Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone, I have a question, how fast should baby boxies grow?
I ordered a baby three toe off the classified on here and bought 2 baby easterns all born this year and were brand new (just lost there egg tooth fresh) in the fall, my 3 toe has always been a very very good eater, he loves crickets, slugs, mealworms, earthworms and waxworms, but doesnt care much for veggies yet, has nibble some banana now and again, anyway he has grown 3 times the size of my other 2 who eat well but not quite the same as him. Is this ok? is it normal?

Hi there. This is my first year with hatchlings, and mine are all Easterns, so I'm not really going to comment on differences in size, other than one of mine (the first to hatch) is about 50% bigger than its clutchmates. It also had started eating within a week of hatching, whereas the others took longer to get started.
My concern is that the shell growth does not appear to be smooth on your little guy, but its hard to tell how uneven it is from the photo. How often are you feeding it, and do you feed it away from the other two? I know sometimes one hatchling can hog the food, or another may be timid about eating in the presence of others...
Stephanie

I have some experience with this as I let my first clutch of baby turtles grow too fast. They were three-toed as well, and I overfed them but feeding them two times a day. Their shells grew very quickly albeit not smoothly. Their legs and muscles did nopt grow as fast so if they turned over they had a very hard time righting themselves.

Your turtle is still quite young and you may be able to stop any further abnormal shell growth by thinking of how they eat in the wild and begin feeding them according. How often do you feed your turtles?
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Tess
Kingsnake.com Forum Host

How do you 'let' any organism grow too fast?
Ed
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

My opinion is that turtles can definetly grow too fast. First, compare the nutritional quality of foods that captives versus wild turtles eat. Commercial foods are going to pack more for the punch. They have been developed to be high quality. Feeding 1 tsp of commercial food vs 1 teaspoon of insects is going to vary greatly in nutritional content. Secondly, most owners tend to overfeed their animals. In addition to getting too much food, they are getting a lot of food at one time instead of foraging throughout the day and getting smaller portions and assimilating that. I see a lot of pet turtles at my work. It is common to see turtles kept is substandard care, meaning lack of UVB and overfeeding (commonly more than once a day). I consistenly see unnatural bumpy shells, irregular scute growth, and assymetrical shells. Furthermore, I believe overfeeding can result in health problems, specifically liver and kidney problems. Why rush growth? In my opinion I would rather have a natural growth rate so I can have a healthy turtle that will live to its maximum life expectancy.

This comes right back to 'what is a 'natural' rate?'. The deformaties you are seeing are the results of an imbalance of nutrition and environmental factors. I can't understand where the rate of growth has been shown to be a problem. If you have an optimal diet and an optimal environment shouldn't you have optimal growth regardless of rate?
I'm not talking 'pumping' up the animal here. I feed my guys every 2 or 3 days. Some grow faster than others. Should I be worried that the slow growers are growing to slow or the fast growers are growing too fast.
It's been argued time and again that there are dwarf and giant populations so rate is not even consistant in the wild.
If you can just point me to one connection to where rate has been implicated in health problems in any chelonian, I'd surely be interested.
To make it clear the animal in question should be normal looking in every aspect of it's appearence and then...
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

Good points. It is very difficult to differentiate and isolate problems of nutrition and environment since they are intertwined. Unfortunately, I see more people that are not adequate turtle keepers and there are problems due to both.
I feed my turtles on the same schedule as you. In fact, I have one wood turtle in particular that grows like a weed and is bigger than those older than him. In a collection of turtles feeding on the same food items, its is evident to see varying natural growth rates. I think we can agree when things are done right.
My response was not aimed at such feedings, but at pumping an animal which I do think is "letting" it grow too fast. I should have made my point this way. Yes I think turtles can grow too fast. If a diet is high in protein, it can lead to several problems. High protein diets have been linked to liver and kidney problems. Too much protein can "seriously impair calcium metabolism and in addition can lead to massively accelerated growth and early sexual maturity(from Highfield's book)."

I was hoping you'd use another reference. Even that author admits in the book that it is his opinion or experience which I don't think is too much different than your or my experience. I've yet to find a case study that links high protein to liver or kidney failure. Every case that might imply that this might be true usually has a factor of dehydration or the feeding of fatty animal protein (dog or cat food).
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care