Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We have a little Red-Footed Tortoise, who is pushing 8 month old, the last time I checked him over his plastron seemed soft, it wasn't hard like our other one. Is it a young tortoise thing? He gets a wide variety of food, with calcium, we put a UV light on him to see if that would help.

It just doesn't seem normal to me, but then again I havn't worked with too many baby redfoots, just the two we own now. I don't remember our suclata having a soft plastron...

Any advice or suggestions would be great...thanks
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Executive Reptiles
Amanda Kingsbury & David Kendrick
www.executivereptiles.com

Improper diet most likely. I use Mazuri exclusively, and since I switched all those typical problems went away.
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South Central Herpetological

Believe it or not I believe it's a sign of dehydration.

Raise the "AMBIENT" humidity as high as you can. This does not mean saturate the substrate. Make a water/soak dish available that he can easily walk into and out of.. about chin deep. [ I'm not big on "force-soaking" ] Place your redfoot into the dish 3-4 times a day and let him decide what he wants to do. And spray him 'til-he-drips' always.

Of course diet is important as well as a place to hide.. they don't bask much at all.

If yours IS sitting under the light it's either trying to thermo-regulate ( he's too cool ) or he needs calcium/D [ which they normally acquire thru their diet in the form of animal protein, fungi and feces ].

Redfoot tortoises are quite unique with their needs.

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Terry E. Kilgore
Turtletary.com

a few years ago there was a guy selling a large redfoot colony on kingsnake. i bought a trio of them and when i picked them up from delta dash i was thrilled b/c the females were bigger than i had thought in the pics. anyways...i got them home and looked at them closely and noticed they all had soft shells in the back where their hips would be and all in that area and inbetween the scutes kinda looked like shell rot or some fungus was there. i think they were being kept to moist for a few years. i know this may not be exactly what is happening in your case but i fixed it by letting them bask in the sun. it has worked in fixing some soft shell issues in some sulcatas a while back too. im not sure what part of the u.s. your in but if possible on a day where the sun is out and the temp. is right stick them outside if possible as much as possible. hope this helps!

Sounds like a calcium deficiency but nobody online is able to diagnose a treatment. Please get him to a vet. A shot of vitamins and calcium can pump them up and wake their apetite. Feed them natural greens and fruits, and get him out in the sun!

Wanda