Our male Gopherus Agassizzi tries to mate with our shoes!

[William Lee Kohler]

What a HANDSOME tortoise you have there and such a wonderful perfect shell. It seems to me a simple answer to a simple question: Get one or two mates for him.

 

[TanksMom]

You are proving my point Pam.

The following is tortoise conversation, that if we were face to face would have a friendly, pleasant and engaging tone. I don't want to come across as condescending or lecturing. This is all intended to be helpful and informative, and just conversation amongst friends.

I've had this conversation the we are having many times. I explain what I explained in my previous post, and people usually reply in a way similar to how you've replied. It demonstrates that the majority of my point was missed, so I want to try to go a little further, but still in a friendly and non-argumentative way. Two main points:
1. You mentioned all the "research" you did when you became a tortoise mom. That is admirable, commendable and as it should be for anyone who is a responsible and conscientious animal caretaker. Here is the problem: Most of what is written on care for this species is wrong. Its been wrong for decades, and how this species has typically been cared for has been wrong for decades. Same story for most tortoise species, but especially so for this species. I think this is due to the fact that they are geographically restricted due to federal law and they exist in such a small portion of the world and in the hands of relatively few keepers. We recently had a new member get upset (Understandably so…) when a moderator told a young member that he would be better off NOT doing random internet "research" and get his info here on this site instead. We had to explain that its not because we are "better" than other people, it is because most sources of info out there, vets, breeders, tortoise "experts" books, websites, etc… are all saying roughly the same thing, and its the same wrong stuff that has been parroted for decades. No doubt, that is the info you found when you did research. This is a common problem and I can understand the dilemma that somebody who is new to tortoises can face. They find 10 sources that say the same thing, verify the same thing with their vet, ask a local tortoise expert and get the same story, and then… they come here and we tell them that all of that is all wrong and they need to do the opposite of what all those other sources told them to do. In most cases in any other subject of interest, I wouldn't buy that. I can understand the skepticism. I can understand their reluctance to accept what they are being told. All I can say is that I have the facts, pictures and evidence to prove what I am saying is right, and if you look at how many die doing it "their" way vs. all of them surviving and thriving "my" way, well… the choice is clear for people who come in with an open mind. Some percentage of people get angry about it and call me names. Most people say "thank you". Some people are understandably skeptical at first and then come back months of years later with thanks and praise.
2. You mentioned the many shady areas that he has to retreat to in your hot summers. Let me ask you, when the daily high is 105, what is the temp in the shade in your your yard? Its a loaded question. I already know the answer. The answer is 105. That is too hot! Being exposed to temps that high is bad for them. They can survive it, but its not good for them. You may be thinking: "How can you say that Tom? They come from the mojave desert where temps are over 105 almost every day in summer." But where are the tortoises when the temp is 105+ in the desert. They are not above ground in the shade. They are deep underground in their protective burrows. Know what the temperature is down there? US Geological surveys tell us that ground temps in that area, at those depths is around 79-81 in summer. In winter, ground temp down there is a steady 50. Doesn't matter how hot or how cold it gets on the surface. Ground temps are steady and mild. As I said, this species is hardy, and they can usually survive these hot and cold temperature extremes above ground in our yards, but it is not good for them. It takes a toll, even though they keep living and plodding along.

I think we agree that something in the new living area is allowing your tortoise to get closer to optimal, and you are starting to see more of the full range of personality and behavior.

I've seen this phenomenon demonstrated many times with many individual tortoises, both my own and other people's. I built my first outdoor sulcata shelter based on advice I found on the internet and in books. These shelters kept them alive, but my tortoises just sort of coasted through the winters surviving. They didn't die or get sick, but they ate a lot less and they were not very active. Sulcatas don't hibernate, and they don't have a "winter" with colder temps over there in the tropics. I made a new house and kept their winter temps warmer, more closely simulating the wild conditions they would experience, and the difference in their behavior, activity, and appetite was night and day. They were now thriving and growing in winter, instead of just getting by long enough to survive until better weather returns. The same sort of things happen to DTs when they are housed in such a way the temperature extremes are lessened. Burrows in summer and heated shelters for cold nights in spring and fall, coupled with steady cold temps for the hibernation months, instead of the vast fluctuations that occur above ground where we spend our days.

I hope this sheds a little more light on what I was trying to say.

Once our boy comes out from hibernating I will update on his behavior and any changes. Tom, that was a lot to absorb, thanks for sharing insights/knowledge.

Pam

 

[Ciri]

I have had this issue with male box turtles. They are not particular about the type of shoe or slipper, and lack of success in mating with my shoe has not been a deterrent. But thankfully they are small so easier to deal with. Although one I had used to bite my shoe, and when that didn't work he would climb up on the shoe and try to bite my ankle. So I did have to watch out for him! I have noticed that a couple of my male box turtles that I adopted were not well fed. They ate a lot for the first year or two, and were pretty laid-back. Once they were well-nourished, this behavior showed up.

It sounds like when you moved into the new house he started getting better nutrition and hydration, and so became healthier his aggressive behavior surfaced. I'm sure it's challenging for them to live in captivity. What do they have to do all day? If they were in the wild, they would be hunting for food and doing the normal activities. They likely would not be as well fed. They probably get bored. It's not always easy to have an "easy life!" Like a teenager with time on his hands and nothing to do, why not make a little trouble and see what you can get away with? They are pretty smart creatures.

 

[DDickie]

Hi,
Our Tank is approximately 40 years old. At approximately 36 years of age he started some odd behavior which we were advised is mating behavior. We don’t have any other tortoises. He was and still is attracted by our shoes; specifically athletic shoes with black rubber on the outside of the toe box! He ignores bare feet, flip flops, slippers, or non athletic type shoes. (He is currently in hibernation).
In the beginning it was “amusing”; more often now it is alarming and/or annoying. Is there any way to dissuade this behavior or is there a time frame?

Thanks!

I obtained a plastic colander & cut the handle off to make my 50+ year-old spur-thighed tortoise a “girlfriend” so that he didn’t damage his shell when bashing it before trying to mate!

P.S. He likes to bite my mother’s leather shoes but ignores mine (maybe it’s a ferromone thing!)

 

[William Lee Kohler]

Get him a couple of females for playmates. Your shoes will thank you..

 

[tglazie]

This is an absolutely fascinating conversation, and I'm so sorry I missed it back in March. What interests me specifically is the nature of shelter for tortoises and how incredibly important it is to get shelter right and how incredibly short we've fallen over the years in getting shelter right for our charges. You see, when I was younger and less experienced, I really didn't provide much in the way of shelter. My idea of shelter for young Greeks, marginateds, well, any tortoise, really, was to stack four bricks and place a thin board over the top of them, buttress the bricks up against a wall of the enclosure. Unsurprisingly, the tortoises would often choose a scrape under some vegetation over this lousy shelter. When I kept Jerry, my sulcata, God rest him, he eventually got so big that I didn't use a shelter, so he would force his way beneath our storage shed. Eventually I got him a doggloo. It wasn't great, but it was better than nothing, though he often disagreed with that whole "better than nothing" bit.

Now, when I was younger, I was also much poorer than I am today. Today, I run a successful business, but back in those days, my father was a maintenance technician at a nonprofit organization, and I worked restaurant jobs. So I never really had much business owning tortoises, seeing as how I couldn't afford to build them the housing they truly needed. Despite this, I often dreamed of what I would do with more ample resources, how I would go about preventing incidences of flooding in deep burrow type shelters, how I would create shortcuts to those burrows in the form of pull away roofs and other such things. I drew diagrams. I was truly obsessed with it.

As I got older, I discovered the versatility and the useful qualities of cinder blocks, and that's where I landed on my current design, a design I'm always considering for improvement. Basically, I form the walls of the shelter from cinder blocks, which I then fill with topsoil and leaf litter to serve as insulation. The roof is very similar to the roofs Tom and others use on their tortoise night boxes, styrofoam encased in wood, essentially, with some roofing shingles attached to further weatherproof the structure. I then staple a thick piece of clear plastic carpet runner in the size and shape of the entrance to ensure a degree of temperature stability within the shelter. Inside the shelter itself, I use five pieces of a board, any old scraps that are tall enough, to construct a small wooden box without a top. I place that box inside the shelter in a corner, and inside that box is just enough space for a reusable cool pack. Generally speaking, the temps within the shelter are in the upper seventies, low eighties. In the winter, of course, they're much colder, but I brumate all of my animals in a fridge indoors, so I don't have to deal with this. But during the dog days of summer, as we are experiencing now and, well, since late May, really, these cool packs really come in handy, and as the temps are in the upper seventies, low eighties, the tortoises spend their afternoons in the shelters, only emerging at dawn and dusk to graze, drink, and do other regular tortoise stuff. The only drag about this whole arrangement is having to replace a dozen cool packs every single day for four months out of the year. If someone has a better idea, I'd definitely be interested in hearing it, but as it stands, it seems to be working. Now, none of my tortoises choose to scrape under a bush instead of resting in the shelter. Every one of them sees the shelter as the best option. But yes, I've definitely come a long way from the four bricks and a board approach, but there must be something I'm not considering. Perhaps I should make chambers or a long hallway leading into an enlarged chamber at the end. But then I've often wondered if this would work for all tortoises, or if it would just be functional for the burrowing species. Hmmm. Always new ideas to consider. One awesome design I saw in practice at the New Orleans zoo was in their frog house, where they piped air from some underground cave or basement or some other such underground hollow. The air was cool but deliciously humid, like the air in Carlsbad Caverns or Natural Bridge. If I become as successful as my wildest dreams suggest I may, I will definitely try to find a Wayne manor type property, only instead of making a bat cave, it will be used as a means of regulating the temps in a tortoise house, something that abuts several enclosures and serves as a divided series of climate controlled, humid hiding spots. But I don't know, we all have wild thoughts.

T.G.

 

[LaLaP]

You are proving my point Pam.

The following is tortoise conversation, that if we were face to face would have a friendly, pleasant and engaging tone. I don't want to come across as condescending or lecturing. This is all intended to be helpful and informative, and just conversation amongst friends.

I've had this conversation the we are having many times. I explain what I explained in my previous post, and people usually reply in a way similar to how you've replied. It demonstrates that the majority of my point was missed, so I want to try to go a little further, but still in a friendly and non-argumentative way. Two main points:
1. You mentioned all the "research" you did when you became a tortoise mom. That is admirable, commendable and as it should be for anyone who is a responsible and conscientious animal caretaker. Here is the problem: Most of what is written on care for this species is wrong. Its been wrong for decades, and how this species has typically been cared for has been wrong for decades. Same story for most tortoise species, but especially so for this species. I think this is due to the fact that they are geographically restricted due to federal law and they exist in such a small portion of the world and in the hands of relatively few keepers. We recently had a new member get upset (Understandably so…) when a moderator told a young member that he would be better off NOT doing random internet "research" and get his info here on this site instead. We had to explain that its not because we are "better" than other people, it is because most sources of info out there, vets, breeders, tortoise "experts" books, websites, etc… are all saying roughly the same thing, and its the same wrong stuff that has been parroted for decades. No doubt, that is the info you found when you did research. This is a common problem and I can understand the dilemma that somebody who is new to tortoises can face. They find 10 sources that say the same thing, verify the same thing with their vet, ask a local tortoise expert and get the same story, and then… they come here and we tell them that all of that is all wrong and they need to do the opposite of what all those other sources told them to do. In most cases in any other subject of interest, I wouldn't buy that. I can understand the skepticism. I can understand their reluctance to accept what they are being told. All I can say is that I have the facts, pictures and evidence to prove what I am saying is right, and if you look at how many die doing it "their" way vs. all of them surviving and thriving "my" way, well… the choice is clear for people who come in with an open mind. Some percentage of people get angry about it and call me names. Most people say "thank you". Some people are understandably skeptical at first and then come back months of years later with thanks and praise.
2. You mentioned the many shady areas that he has to retreat to in your hot summers. Let me ask you, when the daily high is 105, what is the temp in the shade in your your yard? Its a loaded question. I already know the answer. The answer is 105. That is too hot! Being exposed to temps that high is bad for them. They can survive it, but its not good for them. You may be thinking: "How can you say that Tom? They come from the mojave desert where temps are over 105 almost every day in summer." But where are the tortoises when the temp is 105+ in the desert. They are not above ground in the shade. They are deep underground in their protective burrows. Know what the temperature is down there? US Geological surveys tell us that ground temps in that area, at those depths is around 79-81 in summer. In winter, ground temp down there is a steady 50. Doesn't matter how hot or how cold it gets on the surface. Ground temps are steady and mild. As I said, this species is hardy, and they can usually survive these hot and cold temperature extremes above ground in our yards, but it is not good for them. It takes a toll, even though they keep living and plodding along.

I think we agree that something in the new living area is allowing your tortoise to get closer to optimal, and you are starting to see more of the full range of personality and behavior.

I've seen this phenomenon demonstrated many times with many individual tortoises, both my own and other people's. I built my first outdoor sulcata shelter based on advice I found on the internet and in books. These shelters kept them alive, but my tortoises just sort of coasted through the winters surviving. They didn't die or get sick, but they ate a lot less and they were not very active. Sulcatas don't hibernate, and they don't have a "winter" with colder temps over there in the tropics. I made a new house and kept their winter temps warmer, more closely simulating the wild conditions they would experience, and the difference in their behavior, activity, and appetite was night and day. They were now thriving and growing in winter, instead of just getting by long enough to survive until better weather returns. The same sort of things happen to DTs when they are housed in such a way the temperature extremes are lessened. Burrows in summer and heated shelters for cold nights in spring and fall, coupled with steady cold temps for the hibernation months, instead of the vast fluctuations that occur above ground where we spend our days.

I hope this sheds a little more light on what I was trying to say.

Really interesting and informative stuff! Thanks Tom. I have a question... why don't they dig those super deep burrows in backyard enclosures? Are the conditions in our backyards so different that they can't dig them? Is it the soil?

 

[JoesMum]

Wellington,

We try not to have those shoes on but there isn’t always an opportunity to change shoes before entering his (very large, fenced in) part of the yard which also happens to be our garden area (raised beds so he can’t get in). We have given him one of “those” shoes as well as a very attractive thick indestructible mini tire to “mate” with. It just seems that he has become enamored (more) with my hubby or he sees him as a rival for me. LOL

Taking this back to the mating behaviour... my Greek, Joe, was a total pain in the... ankle... for years and it started much younger than 36. And yes, it is entirely normal behaviour.

Strategies:

1. Learn to garden standing up at all times, turning the sole of your foot toward the oncoming tortoise. With practice you can learn to do most garden tasks stood on one foot with only the toe of your other foot on the ground and the sole of that foot being repeatedly rammed.

2. Don't wear flip flops... I actually found he was better when I had bare feet, but this isn't always practical. Or take a 3rd flip flop and abandon that somewhere for your tort to make mad passionate love to while you get on with your work.

3. Other distractions I found effective were a bucket or a garden trug. Joe would often ram these in preference to me. As he also like ramming our wheelie bin, I think the noise may have had something to do with it.

4. Have a fenced off area of your garden or yard that tort can go in while you are working. With the aid of a plank of wood and some house bricks, I could temporarily fence Joe onto an area of our patio if his behaviour was making cutting the lawn impossible (he really did hate our lawn mower!)

The time to worry is if the testosterone leads to extreme behaviour. Joe reached a point where his obsession with sex got so bad that he stopped eating and drinking and made himself ill. He lost half his bodyweight and, for the first time in nearly 40 years with us, had to go to the vet. He repeatedly got infections of the liver and also a URI. In the end the vet had to give Joe a hormone implant, the type used by zoos when then they want to keep groups of males of any species together, which suppressed his urges. He still rammed us and didn't lose his personality, but was more likely to be distracted by a good dandelion en route to investigating us. The whole saga is documented on TFO somewhere.

 

[Tom]

Taking this back to the mating behaviour... my Greek, Joe, was a total pain in the... ankle... for years and it started much younger than 36. And yes, it is entirely normal behaviour.

Strategies:

1. Learn to garden standing up at all times, turning the sole of your foot toward the oncoming tortoise. With practice you can learn to do most garden tasks stood on one foot with only the toe of your other foot on the ground and the sole of that foot being repeatedly rammed.

2. Don't wear flip flops... I actually found he was better when I had bare feet, but this isn't always practical. Or take a 3rd flip flop and abandon that somewhere for your tort to make mad passionate love to while you get on with your work.

3. Other distractions I found effective were a bucket or a garden trug. Joe would often ram these in preference to me. As he also like ramming our wheelie bin, I think the noise may have had something to do with it.

4. Have a fenced off area of your garden or yard that tort can go in while you are working. With the aid of a plank of wood and some house bricks, I could temporarily fence Joe onto an area of our patio if his behaviour was making cutting the lawn impossible (he really did hate our lawn mower!)

The time to worry is if the testosterone leads to extreme behaviour. Joe reached a point where his obsession with sex got so bad that he stopped eating and drinking and made himself ill. He lost half his bodyweight and, for the first time in nearly 40 years with us, had to go to the vet. He repeatedly got infections of the liver and also a URI. In the end the vet had to give Joe a hormone implant, the type used by zoos when then they want to keep groups of males of any species together, which suppressed his urges. He still rammed us and didn't lose his personality, but was more likely to be distracted by a good dandelion en route to investigating us. The whole saga is documented on TFO somewhere.

5. Put them in their night box and shut the door.
6. Put them somewhere else, like in another enclosure.

This is what I have to do with my male SA leopards when I need to work in their enclosures. They are relentless.

 

[Tom]

Really interesting and informative stuff! Thanks Tom. I have a question... why don't they dig those super deep burrows in backyard enclosures? Are the conditions in our backyards so different that they can't dig them? Is it the soil?

I wish I knew the answer to this question. In some cases, there is nothing stopping them from going deeper and longer. They just don't.

 

[Tom]

This is an absolutely fascinating conversation, and I'm so sorry I missed it back in March. What interests me specifically is the nature of shelter for tortoises and how incredibly important it is to get shelter right and how incredibly short we've fallen over the years in getting shelter right for our charges. You see, when I was younger and less experienced, I really didn't provide much in the way of shelter. My idea of shelter for young Greeks, marginateds, well, any tortoise, really, was to stack four bricks and place a thin board over the top of them, buttress the bricks up against a wall of the enclosure. Unsurprisingly, the tortoises would often choose a scrape under some vegetation over this lousy shelter. When I kept Jerry, my sulcata, God rest him, he eventually got so big that I didn't use a shelter, so he would force his way beneath our storage shed. Eventually I got him a doggloo. It wasn't great, but it was better than nothing, though he often disagreed with that whole "better than nothing" bit.

Now, when I was younger, I was also much poorer than I am today. Today, I run a successful business, but back in those days, my father was a maintenance technician at a nonprofit organization, and I worked restaurant jobs. So I never really had much business owning tortoises, seeing as how I couldn't afford to build them the housing they truly needed. Despite this, I often dreamed of what I would do with more ample resources, how I would go about preventing incidences of flooding in deep burrow type shelters, how I would create shortcuts to those burrows in the form of pull away roofs and other such things. I drew diagrams. I was truly obsessed with it.

As I got older, I discovered the versatility and the useful qualities of cinder blocks, and that's where I landed on my current design, a design I'm always considering for improvement. Basically, I form the walls of the shelter from cinder blocks, which I then fill with topsoil and leaf litter to serve as insulation. The roof is very similar to the roofs Tom and others use on their tortoise night boxes, styrofoam encased in wood, essentially, with some roofing shingles attached to further weatherproof the structure. I then staple a thick piece of clear plastic carpet runner in the size and shape of the entrance to ensure a degree of temperature stability within the shelter. Inside the shelter itself, I use five pieces of a board, any old scraps that are tall enough, to construct a small wooden box without a top. I place that box inside the shelter in a corner, and inside that box is just enough space for a reusable cool pack. Generally speaking, the temps within the shelter are in the upper seventies, low eighties. In the winter, of course, they're much colder, but I brumate all of my animals in a fridge indoors, so I don't have to deal with this. But during the dog days of summer, as we are experiencing now and, well, since late May, really, these cool packs really come in handy, and as the temps are in the upper seventies, low eighties, the tortoises spend their afternoons in the shelters, only emerging at dawn and dusk to graze, drink, and do other regular tortoise stuff. The only drag about this whole arrangement is having to replace a dozen cool packs every single day for four months out of the year. If someone has a better idea, I'd definitely be interested in hearing it, but as it stands, it seems to be working. Now, none of my tortoises choose to scrape under a bush instead of resting in the shelter. Every one of them sees the shelter as the best option. But yes, I've definitely come a long way from the four bricks and a board approach, but there must be something I'm not considering. Perhaps I should make chambers or a long hallway leading into an enlarged chamber at the end. But then I've often wondered if this would work for all tortoises, or if it would just be functional for the burrowing species. Hmmm. Always new ideas to consider. One awesome design I saw in practice at the New Orleans zoo was in their frog house, where they piped air from some underground cave or basement or some other such underground hollow. The air was cool but deliciously humid, like the air in Carlsbad Caverns or Natural Bridge. If I become as successful as my wildest dreams suggest I may, I will definitely try to find a Wayne manor type property, only instead of making a bat cave, it will be used as a means of regulating the temps in a tortoise house, something that abuts several enclosures and serves as a divided series of climate controlled, humid hiding spots. But I don't know, we all have wild thoughts.

T.G.

I have a whole bunch of those drawings too, T.G. I think I even posted some on the forum years ago.