Happy Hatchday to Me!

June 7, 2012, was the first time that I celebrated my hatchday with my new parents.  My mum gave me a spa treatment the day before so that I’d look squeaky clean and smell fresh on my big day.  Then on the day itself she bought me a hatchday cupcake and prepared me a salad “treat” comprised of minced lieafy greens and acorn squash & carrot cubes sprinkled with my “calcium + vitamin D3 + minerals” powder (either Vionate for adults, or Rep-Cal for babies & juveniles that use basking lamps that don't emit UVB,  or Nutrobal for babies & juveniles that use basking lamps that emit UVB -- these are brand names of a "calcium balancer & multivitamin supplement" that Tortoise Trust, my human's trusted source for advice on tortoise health, recommends. Ask your vet about it or look it up on Ebay; please take extra steps though to ensure that what you are buying isn't fake)..  I turned 2 years old that day, which officially marked my transition from being a baby geochelone sulcata tortoise into a juvenile sulcata tortoise.  That was also the day that I finally showed my parents that I am in fact a “she”, and not a “he”, as my cloaca area had fully developed.  My parents started calling me Princess Peachy or Peachy for short instead of Bruno from that day on.  My first name is Princess because after my bff Koopa died, I became very, very spoiled  :)  I weighed 850 grams then   :) 

"My human bought me a birthday cupcake and prepared me a salad “treat” comprised of minced lieafy greens and acorn squash & carrot cubes sprinkled with my “calcium + vitamin D3 + minerals” powder."

"I turned 2 years old ...
That was also the day that I finally showed my parents that I am in fact a “she”, and not a “he...”

"I weighed 850 grams on my 2nd hatchday.  My human mum ate my hatchday cupcake  :)  "

"My mum gave me a spa treatment the day before so that I’d look squeaky clean and smell fresh on my big day."

If you want to see how big I am now, you may want to read one of my other blog posts:
•         Tipping the Scale
You May Also Want To Read Some of My Other Blog Posts:
•    My Recommended Nom Nomz List: Grasses, Flowers, Greens & Other Sources of Multiminerals 
•       Why Basking in Unfiltered Sunlight is Important For You & Me =)
•       Having A Detox Spa In My Soaking Tub (a topic on the importance of soaking)
•       Work Out Those Muscles & Bones! =)   
•       How I Met My Humans

The Lost Days

On September 11, 2011, I was tortnapped.   My parents' maid was designated to look after us while we grazed on the front yard that Sunday afternoon, but she fell asleep as I conveniently slipped under our gate lol!  Before I knew it, a neighbor's driver from a block away had picked me up and brought me to his boss's house. My parents circulated "Missing Tortoise" flyers with my picture on it all over our gated residential community.  They offered a small reward, that wasn't too big so as not to encourage anyone into thinking that my value may be too lucrative to sell in the black market.  My mum spent the whole Monday looking for me, calling out my name, around our gated community  On Tuesday, two days later, that neighbor who got me returned me back to my my mum, whose eyes had by then become so swollen from crying.  Thank God I got back into the hands of my loving, Mum  :)   

"My parents circulated "Missing Tortoise" flyers with my picture on it all over our gated residential community.  They offered a small reward, that wasn't too big so as not to encourage anyone into thinking that my value may be too lucrative to sell in the black market.  At that time, my parents thought thqt I was a he, so they called me Bruno.  It was only then when I turned two years old on June 7, 2012 that they finally found out that I'm a 'she'.  Thus, I'm now name Princess Peachy or Peachy for short  :)  "

You Might Also Want to See the First Time I Celebrate My Hatchday With My Humans in:
•    Happy Hatchday to Me!

I Survived MBD (metabolic bone disease)

My parents were first-time sulcata tortoise owners when they got me and my bestfriend, Koopa.  So all they fed us were the buffalo grass and non-toxic weeds that we grazed on their yard.  I was just one year old then while my bestfriend was only around four months old. Sometimes, they would treat us to some skinned squash seeds, cubed acorn squash and water spinach (kangkong) but this was very, very, very seldom.  So for a few months, my bestfriend Koopa and I happily contented ourselves with grazing on the yard and at the park, playing and chasing each other under the big blue sky with the bright, warm sunshine on our scutes.  And at night, when our human parents have left us in our room, Koopa and I talked about what our life would be like in the next 100 years and we made plans on how our tortoise shed should be built when we grew larger.  We talked and talked in our dark room every night until we fell asleep.

"At night, when our human parents have left us in our room, Koopa and I talked about what our life would be like in the next 100 years"

One day after a nice lukewarm bath, while my mum was wiping off the water from our body, she noticed how Koopa’s plastron felt soft;  At that time, she thought that it was probably only because Koopa was just a baby – thus the soft plastron.  He was 11 months old then while I was one and a half years old.  That Friday , I noticed that Koopa’s gait had lost its pep and he started eating very little when we grazed outside.  He became lethargic and started to sleep more often even during our playtime.

"He became lethargic and started to sleep more often even during our playtime."

My human spent sleepless nights as she frantically browsed through the web to know the root cause of my buddy’s symptoms.  It turned out that seven days was not enough to turn everything around, as Koopa’s condition swiftly progressed and it was only on Monday when our human was finally able to locate a veterinarian who specialized and had actual experience in treating a geochelone sulcata tortoise.  In a span of seven days from that Friday when my mum first discovered Koopa’s soft plastron , my bestfriend in the world transformed from being a very active, outgoing, voracious eaten and aggressive young sully, who always tried to step over me when we first met even if he were smaller , into a meek and fragile sickly baby sulcata who eventually lost his appetite completely on Monday, no longer moved and hardly opened his eyes anymore on Tuesday morning, was no longer able to wee and poop and caught pneumonia on Tuesday night, lost his eyesight on Wednesday, then finally died early Thursday morning as soon as my mum fell asleep while watching over him.  At first, she couldn’t accept the fact that Koopa was already dead because his eyes, though no longer moving, were still open.  He was declared dead by his vet when they arrived at the clinic for his scheduled follow-up check-up that Thursday morning. In my understanding, Koopa’s death resulted from complications resulting from advanced stage metabolic bone disease (MBD);  his system tried to get much needed calcium to his frail bones so it rapidly depleted his bloodstream and organs of nutrients particularly calcium until each of his vital organs failed one by one. 

"My bestfriend, Koopa's advance stage metabolic bone disease (MBD) led to complications, which rapidly deteriorated his health. At the time this photo was taken, our mum started to supplement our daily meals with more nutritious greens and grated carrot instead of just grass & non-toxic weeds.But it was too late because Koopa had already completely lost his appetite."

"My shelled friend only opened his eyes for the first time that Monday after his veterinarian (in picture) injected him with vitamins A, E and calcium (January 16, 2012)"

My sick bestfriend, unmoving and too weak to open his eyes during his first visit to his veterinarian. That's a healthy adult sulcata in the background, one of the sulcatas in our vet's care.

A baby sulcata tortoise -- younger but bigger than Koopa -- looks on as Koopa sits still with his eyes closed on the palm of my mum's hand.

The day after Koopa died, my mum checked my plastron and discovered that it was soft, too.  By that time, she’d already discovered www.tortoisetrust.org ,  a highly reputable site organized by people who have years of extensive research on tortoise habitat, husbandry, and health.  My mum suspected that I was suffering from the early signs of MBD (metabolic bone disease).  

How I Met My Humans

I used to live in a small apartment with my former human named, Leonard.  His apartment did not have a garden nor did it have any space where I could spend time to bask under the sun.  I think Leonard worked the night shift because I noticed that he was always nowhere to be found whenever I awoke in the middle of night.  And whenever I woke up in the mornings, I would see him sleeping until the sun set which was also the time for me to sleep.  So for the most part of my one-year-old life then as a baby sulcata tortoise, I lived in a 16”x16”x4” glass enclosure along with three other baby sulcatas.  We had a UV lamp above our glass enclosure that was kept on during the daytime to serve as our artificial sunlight.   This is where I mostly slept, ate my greens, pooped and weed. 

Every two or three days, Leonard would let me and my shelled friends soak in a very slightly warm shallow bath where I always took the chance to drink up at least 2 days’ worth of my water reserve;  This was a good time to go to the loo, too!  On few occasions, when Leonard was off from work and had visitors at our apartment, he would take me and my shelled friends out of our glass enclosure and show us off to his friends.  It was during one of those occasions when I first caught a glimpse of my soon-to-be human mum and dad – Liza and Jeff.  As soon as Leonard set me down on the floor, Liza  got sooo excited!  Her gaze followed my every step.  Heck!  She hardly noticed the rest of Leonard’s other human friends anymore.  I didn’t really mind the attention.  I was flattered.  But it’s not like I made an effort to look cute!  What could she possibly have seen in me??

"It’s not like I made an effort to look cute!  What could she possibly have seen in me??"

Until one night, I suddenly woke up to the sound of a car engine and some voices.  I looked up as I saw Leonard handing me and my three shelled pals inside our glass enclosure to Liza and Jeff – the couple I saw at one of Leonard’s dinner parties.  I was confused.  All I heard was something about Leonard and his girlfriend moving to a new apartment, and that we had to stay with our foster human parents for a month until Leonard had settled in to his new home.  It was dark inside the car as we rode on our way to our new foster home.  Jeff was driving, while I quietly sat inside our glass enclosure on Liza’s lap.  I felt embarrassed too because Liza kept covering her nose.  I worried that she might not like me because I was stinky.  We finally arrived at their house.   It was dark outside but I could tell that it was a much, much bigger place than where I live.  When they set our glass enclosure inside the room, I noticed a baby tortoise that looked just like me, only much smaller, sleeping at a corner (I later found out that his name is Koopa.  I will talk more about him at a later post).   Finally, I grew tired from the confusion and worry until I slowly dozed off.

Me & my shelled friends eating skinned squash seeds at our foster parents' home.

                                     Me & Koopa sharing some leafy greens inside my old glass enclosure

The next morning, Liza let me soak in a very slightly warm shallow bath under the sun.  I was so thirsty so I drank my fill of water glug, glug, glug, glug, glug!  As I thought to myself, “You’ll never know when you’ll get your next drink”.  It was very refreshing!  Oh and the warmth of natural unfiltered sunlight on the back of my shell, forehead and legs while I soaked!  It was so good; it felt a hundred times better than the heat that I got from the UV lamp back at our apartment.  Liza used a toothbrush to remove the dirt from all over my shell carapace and plastron, and it took a week of daily 10-minute soaks and shell scrubbing before I was completely free from that stinky smell.  That’s when I realized too that I wouldn’t have to worry about water anymore, as I now had my 10-minute soaks daily.  After soaking, my human would gently wipe my mouth, nose, feet and shell with a paper towel then set me down on the floor to roam around.  At first, I was not used to having more than 16”x16” of space around me so I usually stayed put in my small area of “comfort zone” even when I was allowed to graze in the garden.   It was a wonderful place!  I got to walk around the house a lot and grazed on the grass in the garden a lot.  Liza gave me so much attention. She tried to pick me up a lot and hold me close to her face.  I wasn’t used to this kind of attention so at first I always worried that she might want to eat me!   She would always pick me up and try to give me a pat on my forehead as she looked into my eyes and softly talked to me.  I got used to this eventually.  And though I could not comprehend her human words, the soft cooing sound of her voice comforted me.   I thought to myself, everything was going to be okay.

"Oh and the warmth of natural unfiltered sunlight on the back of my shell, forehead and legs while I soaked!  It was so good; it felt a hundred times better than the heat that I got from the UV lamp back at our apartment"

                            

"At first, I was not used to having more than 16”x16” of space around me so I usually stayed put in my small area of “comfort zone” even when I was allowed to graze in the garden."

The next month came and I wondered when Leonard was coming to get me back.  One day he came for my three shelled baby sulcata friends so I was left with just Koopa, my foster parents’ baby sulcata tortoise.  I never saw Leonard again after that.   But even though he never came back for me, I knew deep in my heart that he still loved and  cared for me very much – so much so that he let me stay at my new home where he knew that I would get better attention and care from my new human parents.  Thank you, Leonard, for giving me a better chance at life.  You will always have a special place in my heart.-- Princess Peachy, January 2012 (some names were changed to protect the true identities of the characters in this true story)

"I was still a bit pale then during one of my 1st few morning exercises under the sun at my new parents' place."

 You Might Also Want to See the First Time I Celebrate My Hatchday With My Humans in:
•    Happy Hatchday to Me!