Baylee Rose Drown
New Member
Hello!
My partner and I are vegetable farmers in Connecticut. We have two Manouria emys phayrei, both male. We would like to obtain a female or two and start a breeding program. We have indoor greenhouse space that we can use to keep our tortoises over winter, they live outside during the summer.
I've been keeping exotic animals since college, my undergraduate degree is in Animal Science. I worked in a reptile room at an amazing pet store in Michigan for 3 years. My partner has a degree in biology and a masters in education. I was working at an educational farm in Vermont when I stumbled over my tortoises.
I had gotten to know the local pet store staff, as my reptile and invertebrate pets required fresh crickets regularly. I had advised them successfully on how to treat and prevent retained sheds, apparently giving myself some credibility. I was chatting with the manager when a staff member walked up with a narrow flip flop sandal box with a note on it. She said she had discovered two abandoned tortoises is the box on a shelf. They were packed in tight with sphagnum, and left with a care sheet and the explanation that the owner was sick and could not care for them (and that they were a male female pair, 1.5 years old). The manager looked at them and saw problems with dealing with them through corporate, and asked if I wanted them. I thought it over briefly, justifying having them by the abundance of extra organic veggies in my life and all the educational purposes they could serve.
As they have grown they have demostrated eating 5 gallons of seconds kale in a day, and that they like living in our greenhouse, where they scare off pests like mice. We do educational programs on occasion, and they are charismatic co-hosts. People who visit our farm love to see them and offer them a slice of melon or strawberry. Our tortoises fit wonderfully into our life and farm ecosystem. As they have grown larger and bolder we have fallen for their charisma and admire their fearless nature.
Last year (2016), after 6 years of calling them Judy and Gary, we discovered they both were male. Now, at 8 years of age, we hope to find females to pair with them. We would like to contribute to the captive breed population of this endangered species. My previous experience breeding invertebrates, other reptiles and livestock will help, but I look forward to learning how to perfect BBMT breeding, incubation and rearing, so I can help expand their population.
We joined this forum to learn about breeding and network with breeders to obtain female BBMTs.
Thank you,
Baylee and Quinn
My partner and I are vegetable farmers in Connecticut. We have two Manouria emys phayrei, both male. We would like to obtain a female or two and start a breeding program. We have indoor greenhouse space that we can use to keep our tortoises over winter, they live outside during the summer.
I've been keeping exotic animals since college, my undergraduate degree is in Animal Science. I worked in a reptile room at an amazing pet store in Michigan for 3 years. My partner has a degree in biology and a masters in education. I was working at an educational farm in Vermont when I stumbled over my tortoises.
I had gotten to know the local pet store staff, as my reptile and invertebrate pets required fresh crickets regularly. I had advised them successfully on how to treat and prevent retained sheds, apparently giving myself some credibility. I was chatting with the manager when a staff member walked up with a narrow flip flop sandal box with a note on it. She said she had discovered two abandoned tortoises is the box on a shelf. They were packed in tight with sphagnum, and left with a care sheet and the explanation that the owner was sick and could not care for them (and that they were a male female pair, 1.5 years old). The manager looked at them and saw problems with dealing with them through corporate, and asked if I wanted them. I thought it over briefly, justifying having them by the abundance of extra organic veggies in my life and all the educational purposes they could serve.
As they have grown they have demostrated eating 5 gallons of seconds kale in a day, and that they like living in our greenhouse, where they scare off pests like mice. We do educational programs on occasion, and they are charismatic co-hosts. People who visit our farm love to see them and offer them a slice of melon or strawberry. Our tortoises fit wonderfully into our life and farm ecosystem. As they have grown larger and bolder we have fallen for their charisma and admire their fearless nature.
Last year (2016), after 6 years of calling them Judy and Gary, we discovered they both were male. Now, at 8 years of age, we hope to find females to pair with them. We would like to contribute to the captive breed population of this endangered species. My previous experience breeding invertebrates, other reptiles and livestock will help, but I look forward to learning how to perfect BBMT breeding, incubation and rearing, so I can help expand their population.
We joined this forum to learn about breeding and network with breeders to obtain female BBMTs.
Thank you,
Baylee and Quinn
