Just wanted to say, it was brilliant meeting you all yesterday, the icing on the cake. Hope everyone had a good journey home. Looking forward to Oxford and meeting with some of you again. Have emailed Kevin Eatwell to see what he would suggest is used for weights instead of JR method, will post when I receive a reply TC Jane
It was great meeting up with you too. It's good to be able to put a face to a name isn't it? I think you've met about half of us at the TPG now <g>. We also met Andy too and guess what? I got a chance to see his beautiful tortoises and his fabulous set ups on the way home too.
I'm getting a mail together later this evening regarding quite a few interesting and informative points Kevin made in his talk and he has kindly agreed to go through all the points he raised in greater detail. I can see all the points he raised are valid, though as with all information, it always raises further questions:-)
To be honest, Kevin's talk was a complete breath of fresh air and it is so good to hear a vet promote tortoise husbandry that is inline with what we promote here. Unfortunately this isn't always the case with vets, even those who claim to be exotics vets:-)
It was lovely meeting you yesterday, Jane, and I really look forward to Oxford again!
Re the Jackson Ratio -- for those of us who keep species for which the JR doesn't apply (and that is a lot of species), this is nothing new, and we just somehow muddle through with no real guidelines. And I have never quite got the grip of the 'should feel like a well filled meat pie' theory, as every meat pie I eat seems to have a different feel to it, and my horsfield has never felt as heavy as a meat pie. To find some guidelines would be wonderful, but I wonder if that is possible. In my notes from Kevin's talk, when he said not to rely on the JR, I noted that he said that a clinical assessment was far more important than the JR weight to length ratio, but how can the average keeper do a thorough clinical assessment? Do let us know what he says.
Yes I could see what he was saying, infact he has made me want to go deeper into the temps and nutrition calcium phosphate ratio's. I was so relieved when he said that he was against Vivariums, you would expect Vet's who own torts to be saying that. I liked the point also that he said he was against these Pre check hibernation meetings, they scare me to death I was asked to bring Keya & Molly to one of these, but gracefully declined!!
Helen - brilliant that you got to see Andy's Molly & Lily, they look gorgeous.
