# different type tort playdate?



## Cassidy (Oct 8, 2010)

I want to bring my tort to my friends house and she has a different type of tort and theirs is alittle bit bigger than mine is it ok to get them together?Did I mention hers is female mine is a male.


----------



## DeanS (Oct 8, 2010)

Not a good idea under any circumstances...you visit your friend's tortoise and your friend can come visit yours...tortoises don't need playmates...


----------



## Cassidy (Oct 8, 2010)

Thanks for your response but why?Will they get sick?


----------



## Yvonne G (Oct 8, 2010)

Hi Cassidy:

Whenever you add a new tortoise to your existing tortoise, or group of tortoises, you have to have a quarantine period...usually 6 months, but most people opt for 3 months. 

As time goes by and more and more of our tortoises come from breeders rather than from the wild, this probably won't be such a necessity, but for right now, with wild caught tortoises being kept as pets, its just good tort-keeping to quarantine them.

I like to use the analogy of the first white people coming from Europe and making the native people sick and dead. Its not quite the same thing, but it gets the picture across to you. Tortoises have little micro-organisms that live inside them. Each type of tortoise has become accustomed to his micro-organisms over the eons and they get along without harming each other. But when you introduce a tortoise from a different continent, those same organisms might make the other tortoise sick or even dead.

Tortoises are, generally speaking, solitary animals. They don't need a companion to make them happy...and they definitely don't need to "play" with another tortoise.


----------



## DeanS (Oct 8, 2010)

I like Yvonne's analogy...if I don't go into great detail about why something is a good idea or not a good idea, it's usually because I like to think ALL people have common sense and will figure it out for themselves.


----------



## Maggie Cummings (Oct 8, 2010)

Not a good idea. Tortoises are solitary animals and don't need or want a play date with anybody. The traveling will stress him out(unless he's a Sulcata) and the actual visit will stress him out and the other tortoises could conceivably make your tortoise sick or dead, or the other way around. So on a whole it's not a good idea at all.


----------

