I thought I'd weigh and measure Marley this morning after reading Terry's advice about weight gain and under feeding.
I've have always weighed him monthly (at least) aiming for 2-3g gain per month.
When I got him when he was a month old and was 21g now he is 54g so that's about 2.5g a month gain, which I thought was ideal

He always eats his food in one go... now I'm thinking I've been under feeding him.
TBH he is always hungry but I thought this was pretty normal
He doesn't get pellets, just weeds and flowers, salad leaves in the winter (if I have to) and Pre Alpin Baby... I'm really trying to aim for the high fibre, low protien diet.
I'm not hibernating him this year.

He is nearly 14 months old.


And here's his weight (please click to enlarge)


Looking at this he is quite a bit under weight isn't he????
Help I need advice!!!!!

hi your tortoise is steadily gaining weight and hasnt lost any weight,obviously you keep him well hydrated.the weight gains sounds fine to me.although according to the Jacksons ratio he is underweight please bear in mind this was devised for all med tortoises and hermans arent as high domed as the spurthighed.what i do with mine is add a percentage of chopped grasses to their food while indoors this way they have something to pick over during the day.i find it keeps them busy and stops any substrate eating.any grasses they do eat are fibrous and certainly wont hurt their digestion.please dont be to concerned and rather than just increase the amount of food change the recipe a little increase the percentage of coarse plantains like hoary and ribwort and to increase the bulk add chopped grasses.i dont feed manufactured diets like pre alpin so cant comment from experience.to be honest Anita i hear figures quoted like 2-4g per month,which i agree is an excellent average while they are still small as yours is.but they keep quoting this figure without asking or having a clue what size the persons tortoise is. i have even heard it quoted without asking what type of tortoise it was.

Thanks for the reply Terry. I think I have my calculations wrong this morning (my effort without putting my glasses on )
I should have entered the weight 6.5 instead of 65!!!!!!
Which makes him fine on the Jacksons Ratio, so that's ok.

I will tweak his diet a bit though as you suggested, give him a bit more to pick over through the day. Thanks for that
I'm gonna look at your hatchling diet now.

if you look on the jacksons hatchling graph he is a little under weight but i wouldnt be over concerned.when you look at my diet bear in mind the spring mix is added for variety when weeds are scarce. when weeds are plentiful with lots more choice i dont use it at all.

another thing to bear in mind that the JR like all other graphs (even babies graphs in the red books?) are all based on the average..they don't take into account that some are mis-shappen, or grow at different rates, some have deformaties etc, they are there as a guide only, so don't get to panicky when using them, if you keep a record of your torts growth you will see over time how they are doing.