Males/females in the same enclosure ?

Hello

Does anyone have males living in the same enclosure or the same outdoor space or does everybody separate males from males and from females ? We can not know if our tortoises are males or females or 1 male and 1 female (they are 3.5 years) and somebody told us that it was a bad idea to buy a third tortoise without knowing if they are males or females. They told us we may have to separate each tortoise from each other in the future, with our two tortoises we can manage it but with a third it may be more complicated.

We do not want them to have babies but we want to avoid harassment and attacks when they are adults...
Our tortoises are boettgeri and the third we are thinking about is a boettgeri too (we do not know if this third is a male or a female he/she is less than 1 year old).

Thank you and happy new year !

All of my tortoises live in male/female groups outside. I have only one male in all the groups. My outdoor tortoise yards are large enough that the females are not crowded with the males and have plenty of room to get away from them.

You can't put the new, smaller tortoise in with the larger ones anyway, so by the time it's big enough to live with your existing two, you'll know its gender, and if it's male, you can make another enclosure or sell it.

Boettgeri said:

Hello

Does anyone have males living in the same enclosure or the same outdoor space or does everybody separate males from males and from females ? We can not know if our tortoises are males or females or 1 male and 1 female (they are 3.5 years) and somebody told us that it was a bad idea to buy a third tortoise without knowing if they are males or females. They told us we may have to separate each tortoise from each other in the future, with our two tortoises we can manage it but with a third it may be more complicated.

We do not want them to have babies but we want to avoid harassment and attacks when they are adults...
Our tortoises are boettgeri and the third we are thinking about is a boettgeri too (we do not know if this third is a male or a female he/she is less than 1 year old).

Thank you and happy new year !

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Tortoises should never be living as pairs, regardless of the age or sex. You need to separate the two you have now.

Sometimes groups of juveniles can get along, but not pairs. Once they start getting closer to maturity, you'll see if they are going to get along or not. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.

Thank you for your advice.

Yvonne G we definitetively can't put them together yet even if we buy the new one because our tortoises hibernate and we also need to quarantine the new one any way to make sure she/he is not sick. If the new one is not sick then we could think about it in Spring.
I've never heard about the problem with the size.I don't even know why the size difference is a problem ? The tortoise we think about is too big for her/his age and almost as big as ours (our tortoises hibernate each year since birth, this little one has sadly always lived in inside without hibernating).

Tom I can't separate them now because they are hibernating. They have always been together since birth even at the breeder's house. I've never heard anything about why juveniles can't be two ? What do you mean by groups but not pairs ? should we introduce more tortoises with ours if we want to keep them together as long as they still get along ?
I've heard a lot of different things, some told me that it was ok or even cool for them to be living together if they get along. Some others think we should separate them when they reach maturity and some that they should always be alone.

I had three that lived together for 10 years prior to me getting them 3 years ago! Unfortunately my male died last year he got a respiratory infection and never peeled up from the antibiotics in the end I had to make the heart breaking decision with my vet to put him to sleep as we had tried everything and he would not get any better!
But my two females still live together! They have missed their friend tho! They walk around where he would usually chill out and keep looking for him. The only advice I will give is with males and females co habiting is be aware of the active months when the males won’t leave the females alone! The year we got ours I did separate them as he got super territorial and wanted to continuously mate and patrol the perimeter ... I think maybe because it was new but it helped me to keep a very close eye on them and there after there wasn’t a problem
Good luck on your decision