Hi all - I am new here - my story.....

My son got a RT for Christmas last year 06'. My sister got her for him, she got her from a pet store. I did much research before we brought her home, set up everything just like I researched, got all food/vits ready, here we go.

Took her to the vet, she weighed in at 221g, he said she had shell rot, was extremely underweight for her size and had a lot of scaring on her shell what a shocker....we had no idea!!

So, per the vet (he was recommended by my cat's vet as a good herp vet) he said to feed her worms she needs more protein, I said that goes against everything I have researched. He said to do it. Well new to reptiles I trusted the vet and she loved them! But after just a short time I got hooked up with a very knowledgable tort/turtle person that set me straight - again.

She had a great summer, cruzing around outside eating, exercising, growing. She is now at 379g and all of her shell rot is long gone, and has had a very steady growth since early spring. Here she is, you can see her growth ring, it is hard to see but her underneath is expanding too, nice and uniform. Saphira....


I don't have pics that I can post of when we got her, but this was her this summer, you can see the difference between the ones above.


I went to a hibernation seminar late summer with the expectations of hibernating Saphira, well she was still not quite healthy enough so we will have to wait until this fall.

Any comments would be great. She has slowed down a lot, which is expected being winter and all, but still doing great. What a great little species, we just love her. She sure opened my world up to reptiles like I never thought possible.

Thanks for looking, peace!