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I have a young Hermann's Tortoise that I have been keeping for sometime over 1 year since I bought it at about 4 months of age. It has been eating well and growing at a good pace. I feed it a varied diet of mostly green leafy vegetables (very little if any spincach or kale). It also gets to eat a fairly wide variety of flowers from my garden (fertilizer and pesticide free). I do not feed it any animal protein. I also supplement its diet with Mazuri Tortoise Chow every now and then. It is an inside tortoise in a large enough enclosure and, sometimes during the warm months it goes out into a turtle pen I built for it. For example it has been outside for at least 45 days so far this summer. Therefore it gets both artificial and natural light. The artificial light is supplied by one incandescent bulb for heat and one fluorescent bulb for UVB (yes it is a special herp bulb). The substrates I use are Alfalfa and/or Timothy hays. Fresh drinking water is available.

For some reason unknown to me the tortoise's shell is beginning to pyramid. Can anyone explain why this might be happening after taking into consideration the care I am giving it as mentioned above.

Thank you for your help with this one.

Best regards,
Glenn B

Oh yes, it also gets other vegetables and some fruits now and again such as peppers, carrots, apple, grapes, and so forth.

Look up the article printed in Reptiles magazine a few months ago, by Richard Fife. Fife is an accomplished and respected breeder, and he states in part that lack of humidity may contribute to pyramiding. I have had none of my tortoises pyramid, and I offer them a choice of hide outs, including one that is damp. EJ taught me a trick, split a flower pot and glue a sponge into the "ceiling" of it. Offer this with damp sponge as a hide. Your little guy may spend a lot of time in it. I also use plactic PVC pipe with a damp sponge in the end to provide humid area. Do read Fifes well written article. Perhaps someone with better memory than I can refer to the issue? Good luck, let us know how it grows. Vic

http://www.sulcata-station.org/pyramiding.html

Here is a very good article for you too read that may shed some light on your tortoises pyramiding. Also, don't feed fruit to often, or root vegetables. They should be fed more weeds and grasses.

Dandelions (leaves, stems and flowers), opuntia cactus, sedum, plantains (the weed not the fruit), hibiscus, honeysuckle, some clovers, bermuda grass, sow thistle leaves and many other non toxic weeds and grasses should be given. Grocery store greens should be used as little as possible and fruits should be given very rarely. You can purchase seed mixes from www.turtlestuff.com and grow a lot of good grazing foods for your tortoise. I grow them outdoors in the summer and indoors during the winter, by a window.

Do you have a humid hide for your tort? If not that is a big factor in pyramiding (read the link above).

Also, do you vary food intake? Its good to skip a day every now and then and to vary the amount of food they eat daily. Hermann's are known to over eat.

As for your suggestions and questions:

I'll check the articles that both of you suggested.

My tortoise does have a humid hide, it frequently buries itself inside of it. The ambient humidity is also fairly high, especially in the summer.

It is well hydrated.

As for exercise, my tortoise gets quite a bit of that. It is quite active.

Its diet is quite varied, and it only gets fed about every other day in varying amounts. It is definitely not overfed at any time. I take great care not to overfeed any of my herps.

It gets to eat fruit about once every month or two in a small amount added to its other food.

It is offered grass to eat but, it rarely eats any grasses if at all. If you read suggested online article, by Mr. Senneke, carefully, you will see it does not recommend giving all tortoises a lot of grasses to eat but is specifically talking about a problem with Leopard Tortoises and lack of grass. Please remember this is a Hermann’s Tortoise not a tortoise that normally eats a lot of grass. If you check this article: http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/hermannstortoisecare.htm, by the same author, you will see the diet recommended for Hermann’s Tortoises is basically green leafy vegetables.

In my opinion, which differs here from mr. Senneke’s, there is no problem with grocery store greens for a Hermann’s Tortoise. There is sufficient fiber content in many store bought greens as far as the species specific diet of a Hermann’s Tortoise is concerned. I buy a wide variety of greens and am positive the fiber content is sufficient after having researched such. The stooles deposited by my tortoise do not evidence otherwise, they are never watery instead they are firm and fibrous. Of course, as I already stated in my earlier post, I feed it greens from my back yard also for variety. These greens are fed in large percentage compared to store bought, from mid June through mid to late October. Therefore I am highly doubtful that lack of fiber content is causing the problem. Also, I am not worried about pesticides on store bought greens as I eat them myself and, I have fed store bought greens to a wide variety of herps and other animals (small mammals) over many years with no apaprent health problems for them.

I will point out that I did forget to mention something in my first post; it is probably important. Maybe this will help someone in figuring out the pyramiding problem, maybe not. The Hermann’s Tortoise in question is kept with a cage mate, another Hermann’s Tortoise. It is therefore kept under the identical conditions as is the other tortoise. The other tortoise exhibits absolutely no pyramiding. They get the same diet, the same water, the same humidity, the same lighting, the same vitamin and mineral supplementation and, they have the same amount of room for exercise. They do not appear to stress one another. They eat peacefully side by side as opposed to one eating and the other holding off because of stress. It makes me wonder if there is possible a genetic predisposition to pyramiding or to a problem that causes pyramiding such as inability to properly metabolize food.

Oh well, I will seek out the article from Reptiles by Richard Fife as well, even though I believe my guys to be properly hydrated and to have sufficient humidity in their hide; maybe it will hold another clue as well as the hydration info.

Please keep the answers coming, they are quite interesting and I appreciate all the help that has been given so far.

Best regards,
Glenn B

You mention humidity but not temperature. An increase in temperature might help.

You also have to look at behavior. When there is more than one tortoise there is definately going to be a more dominant animal where the submissive animal gets the left overs(heat, food and prime resting areas)

>>As for your suggestions and questions:
>>
>>I'll check the articles that both of you suggested.
>>
>>My tortoise does have a humid hide, it frequently buries itself inside of it. The ambient humidity is also fairly high, especially in the summer.
>>
>>It is well hydrated.
>>
>>As for exercise, my tortoise gets quite a bit of that. It is quite active.
>>
>>Its diet is quite varied, and it only gets fed about every other day in varying amounts. It is definitely not overfed at any time. I take great care not to overfeed any of my herps.
>>
>>It gets to eat fruit about once every month or two in a small amount added to its other food.
>>
>>It is offered grass to eat but, it rarely eats any grasses if at all. If you read suggested online article, by Mr. Senneke, carefully, you will see it does not recommend giving all tortoises a lot of grasses to eat but is specifically talking about a problem with Leopard Tortoises and lack of grass. Please remember this is a Hermann’s Tortoise not a tortoise that normally eats a lot of grass. If you check this article: http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/hermannstortoisecare.htm, by the same author, you will see the diet recommended for Hermann’s Tortoises is basically green leafy vegetables.
>>
>>In my opinion, which differs here from mr. Senneke’s, there is no problem with grocery store greens for a Hermann’s Tortoise. There is sufficient fiber content in many store bought greens as far as the species specific diet of a Hermann’s Tortoise is concerned. I buy a wide variety of greens and am positive the fiber content is sufficient after having researched such. The stooles deposited by my tortoise do not evidence otherwise, they are never watery instead they are firm and fibrous. Of course, as I already stated in my earlier post, I feed it greens from my back yard also for variety. These greens are fed in large percentage compared to store bought, from mid June through mid to late October. Therefore I am highly doubtful that lack of fiber content is causing the problem. Also, I am not worried about pesticides on store bought greens as I eat them myself and, I have fed store bought greens to a wide variety of herps and other animals (small mammals) over many years with no apaprent health problems for them.
>>
>>I will point out that I did forget to mention something in my first post; it is probably important. Maybe this will help someone in figuring out the pyramiding problem, maybe not. The Hermann’s Tortoise in question is kept with a cage mate, another Hermann’s Tortoise. It is therefore kept under the identical conditions as is the other tortoise. The other tortoise exhibits absolutely no pyramiding. They get the same diet, the same water, the same humidity, the same lighting, the same vitamin and mineral supplementation and, they have the same amount of room for exercise. They do not appear to stress one another. They eat peacefully side by side as opposed to one eating and the other holding off because of stress. It makes me wonder if there is possible a genetic predisposition to pyramiding or to a problem that causes pyramiding such as inability to properly metabolize food.
>>
>>Oh well, I will seek out the article from Reptiles by Richard Fife as well, even though I believe my guys to be properly hydrated and to have sufficient humidity in their hide; maybe it will hold another clue as well as the hydration info.
>>
>>Please keep the answers coming, they are quite interesting and I appreciate all the help that has been given so far.
>>
>>Best regards,
>>Glenn B
-----
Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

They have a basking area temperature from 94-100 degrees, the ambient temperature in the enclosure is about 80-86 at mid enclosure, with a cool end temperature of about 72 to 78 degrees (all temps in Fahrenheit). Night temps fall as low as 66 but are usually in the very high 60s to very low 70s). They spend ample time in various areas of the enclosure, seemingly indicating they are receiving enough warmth and having access to a cool enough area also; I say this if simply because they do not remain in one area of the enclosure (either at the warm end only or cool end only) as often happens when temps are not correct for a herp.

As for one tortoise bullying the other at feeding time, this does not happen. It did a bit early on but, this was quite easy to solve. Now they either they eat from the same bowl side by side or from separate bowls in different areas of the enclosure. The one with the pyramiding is not intimidated by the cage mate from as judged from any of its evidenced behavior; if such seemed to be the case they would be separated. In fact I have seen the smaller one (the one with the pyramiding) nudge out the larger one when food was offered. It goes both ways about evenly and as I said, it has been solved. Each gets its fill, each has a good body weight in proportion to its size though the one with the pyramiding is somewhat smaller they are of compatibale sizes.