# Russian and Greek living together



## JezikaB (Feb 22, 2013)

I just bought a 2 yr old male Russian and a male 3 yr old Golden Greek. Their old keeper had them living together since they were a few months each. Should I separate them or is it ok to keep them living together?


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## Terry Allan Hall (Feb 22, 2013)

It's a tricky thing have torts of different varieties living in the same enclosure, as they can potentially give one another diseases and/or parasites, and the fact that they've lived together may mean little as tortoises often take a very long time in showing health issues.

I'd seperate them, were it me, just to be on the safe side.


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## wellington (Feb 22, 2013)

I agree.


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## JezikaB (Feb 23, 2013)

Thanks for the advice I will look into making a new home for my greek


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## Yvonne G (Feb 23, 2013)

Hi Jessica:

Please use the "search" feature and look up "Mixing species." This will give you lots of reading material and a better understanding of why some of us don't believe species should be mixed in the same habitat.


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## GBtortoises (Feb 24, 2013)

The fact alone that they are two different species from two very different regions of the world makes it not good to maintain them together. 
Russian tortoises are a species from the far north that inhabit temperate desert regions. "Golden" Greeks are from a number of different Middle Eastern species all of which inhabit drier, less seasonally variable, more temperature stable regions of the Middle East. 
In other words the two species have some very different environmental demands.

In additions to that you're keeping two males together. Two males which are from species whose males are two of the most aggressive and persistant on earth. There may be no compatability issues when they're young but when one or both of them get close to sexual maturity there is almost guaranteed to be territorial and aggression issues between them.


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