"What do I feed my Greek Tortoise?" Part 2

I have been frequenting a great site that I found a little while back called TotallyTortoise.com. There is some pretty good generic information on there that is helpful to any beginner keeper of chelonians. The page that I really like, however, is the Tortoise Blog. This site is pretty well-known so a lot of people get on and ask all sorts of questions. Honestly, many of the questions that I have read would be better posed to a veterinarian than to whomever happens to read and respond to a posting (and that's what I usually tell these folks--"Take your tortoise to a veterinarian").
Yesterday I came across a post from D who has a [beautiful] Golden Greek Tortoise. She asked three very good questions:


1.Is my tortoise getting fed properly?
2.Do I need to trim his nails and how?
3.Is shell flaking normal and should I use calcium supplement again?

Read more »

Tortoise Terminology

This is a running glossary of sorts.  I will be continually adding to it as I think of new words and terms that would be of interest to the keeper of Greek Tortoises.  Please feel free to comment on either my definitions or on terms that you would like to see included (along with a suggested definition if you happen to have one).  To find uses of these words within The Greek Tortoise Guild, I suggest inputing a term into the "Search The Greek Tortoise Guild" search field at the top right of the blog.
(Note: Along with my other posts, these definitions are given as they apply to Greek Tortoises, and though many definitions are universal, these do not necessarily apply to all chelonians.)

Read more »

Greek Pyramids

"Pyramiding" is a condition that the experienced keeper of Greek Tortoises (or any chelonian for that matter) will surely know about. However, for novices, this affection is either unknown or at the very least misunderstood; until a few weeks ago, my level of comprehension was a lot closer to the latter.

I thought that Pyramiding was a general doming of the carapace, almost like a bubble was caught inside the shell and was gradually making it taller and more convex. I also was under the impression that pyramiding was caused by a diet severely lacking in nutrients and just abhorrently poor in general (something like using white bread, dog food, meat, or some other heinous "food").

Not so.

Read more »