Breeding beginner friendly?

[dmmj]

Keep in mind, being a breeder isn't just as easy as throwing males and females together and tah-dah, you have babies to sell.

I wanted to breed Russians, too. I acquired 1 male and 3 females. Since they were from the same source, I didn't need to quarantine. They lived outside (when I lived in SoCal) in a well planted enclosure that was 20' x 6'. I personally couldn't handle the tortoise "rape". The male was very rough. 2 females stopped eating and wouldn't come out of hiding, leaving the third female to take the beating.
I separated the male into a 17'x8' bachelor pad. Then the 3 females were having dominance issues in the 20x6!
I could have made additional enclosures, separated everyone and kept trying but I didn't want to cut into my leopard tortoise space. I figured Russian breeding just wasn't for me and that's ok.
It worked out that their previous owner took them back.

some wine and barry white helps

 

[Wanda]

I have two Russian girls that lay eggs which I hatch as a hobby. In my opinion, if you care about the hatchling tortoises then you will never make money to more than break even and cover costs. I am in the process of selling my hatchlings and weeding out the 'buying on a whim' people, those that don't want to learn how to keep them properly and all the rest is time consuming in itself. And then you have to educate all the ones that are ok and want to get it right and need a lot of help doing so. It takes ages and ages ! I would never let my hatchlings go to anyone I didn't think will be a caring and good owner and I don't mind turning people away. I would say turn away a good 70% of people that enquirer.
That's is not to say that there aren't people that make money and do care (before i offend someone badly )