Having more than one Cherryhead or Redfoot

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EricIvins

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-EJ said:
What about the blood red headed ones that I believe come from Venezuela...


cdmay said:
- Madkins007:
The thing about both sites that really fascinates me is that they are showing Cherry-heads and making no special mention of them. On the 'characteristics' page of the first site, they mention that Red-foots come in two color forms- red and yellow (but different from the Yellow-foot.) The red form is called the Cherry-head in the US. In other words, we are making a big deal out of something they consider perfectly commonplace.

Yes, this is true. It is also one of the reasons that most people now agree that the 'cherryhead' form of redfoot must be native to that region of Brazil since the locals don't seem to recognize that they are different from the RFs in other parts of Brazil.

I've never seen any red head Northern come out of Venezuela, but I have seen them come out of the Ripinuni flood plain in Guyana. Ed Ruby has a Male that I picked out of a group from the Ripinuni. That animal is an incredible Northern, but from what Ed's told me, he's really shy and reclusive, and wont go near the Females.............
 

cdmay

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-EJ said:
What about the blood red headed ones that I believe come from Venezuela...

EJ, there are more characteristics besides a red head that make the 'cherryheads' distinct.
I too have seen solid red headed animals from pretty much everywhere over the years just as I have seen solid yellow headed animals. But it takes more than just a red head to identify that population.
It would be like saying "What about the gigantic redfoots that sometimes come out of Suriname? Does that make then the same as Bolivians?"
 

-EJ

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I know.

My comment was just an observation.

cdmay said:
-EJ said:
What about the blood red headed ones that I believe come from Venezuela...

EJ, there are more characteristics besides a red head that make the 'cherryheads' distinct.
I too have seen solid red headed animals from pretty much everywhere over the years just as I have seen solid yellow headed animals. But it takes more than just a red head to identify that population.
It would be like saying "What about the gigantic redfoots that sometimes come out of Suriname? Does that make then the same as Bolivians?"
 

Candy

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Madkins, I can't believe how big those Redfoots look in the pictures. They look huge do they get that big? And their heads are so red. And if anyone looks at the site that Madkins put up the Redfoots are being fed tomatoes and a lot of them and I even saw a whole apple thrown in there (what about the seeds). I guess males do get a long because there's a lot of Redfoots on that farm. Thanks for the site.

cdmay said:
Candy, no I don't have any females for sale. But they do appear from time to time.

Too bad Carl. I know I would get a good one from you. Anyway if you see any let me know. Thanks. :)
 

Meg90

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Have you checked turtletary?

I think you would be a great tort mom to another baby. Dale is spoiled rotten! Its FUN to have more than one! And you really know your stuff now.
 

-EJ

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I'm sorry... I don't know why I got a giggle out of this.

To clarify... terry learned from those who have posted in this thread.

Meg90 said:
Have you checked turtletary?

I think you would be a great tort mom to another baby. Dale is spoiled rotten! Its FUN to have more than one! And you really know your stuff now.
 

Redfoot NERD

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-EJ said:
I'm sorry... I don't know why I got a giggle out of this.

To clarify... terry learned from those who have posted in this thread.

Meg90 said:
Have you checked turtletary?

I think you would be a great tort mom to another baby. Dale is spoiled rotten! Its FUN to have more than one! And you really know your stuff now.

Maybe we should let her say where she learned?
 

Yvonne G

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Redfoot NERD said:
Maybe we should let her say where she learned?

I thought he was referring to Terry K as having learned from those posting on this site. No?

Yvonne
 

Meg90

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I was referring to the comment about Candy WANTING to get another redfoot.

I am staying out of all the technical stuff. So, giggle a way, I guess. :)
 

Redfoot NERD

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emysemys said:
Redfoot NERD said:
Maybe we should let her say where she learned?

I thought he was referring to Terry K as having learned from those posting on this site. No?

Yvonne

Ed may have Yvonne.. but he knows better than that. I do credit Carl M.. Richard F.. and Ed P on the Redfoots.com site.

I still wonder why credit is 'seldom' given by some of these that post most often here?

Carl M ( cdmay ) was most helpful [ before Tortoiseforum.org even existed ] beginning with incubating eggs in the fall of '04!

Richard F ( RIPARIAN FARMS - Ivory Sulcata ) for the wisdom of NOT over-supplementing hatchlings/yearlings.

Ed P ( EJ ) for a combination of things??? :rolleyes:

And after a disastrous first 3-4 years or so with my first hatchlings (that became breeders) [ '98 - '02 ] following "other" caresheets [ paint-all-tortoises-with-the-same-brush type ] and talking with breeders that NEVER post on any forums.. the Turtletary caresheet evolved.. only AFTER RESEARCHING WITH THOSE THAT KNOW.. and have done it in their backyards for 20+ years.

For whatever that's worth Yvonne.

Terry K
 

Redfoot NERD

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cdmay said:
- Madkins007:
The thing about both sites that really fascinates me is that they are showing Cherry-heads and making no special mention of them. On the 'characteristics' page of the first site, they mention that Red-foots come in two color forms- red and yellow (but different from the Yellow-foot.) The red form is called the Cherry-head in the US. In other words, we are making a big deal out of something they consider perfectly commonplace.

Yes, this is true. It is also one of the reasons that most people now agree that the 'cherryhead' form of redfoot must be native to that region of Brazil since the locals don't seem to recognize that they are different from the RFs in other parts of Brazil.

Mark [ from all of the research that you do ] you no doubt know that this "Cherryhead" thing (conceived by a number of guys many years back [ PET FARM - Florida ] as a MARKETING ploy to sell a different looking redfoot tortoise.. here in the USA! Rob Roy [ Glades Herp ] as far as we know still has a few from the early shipments.

Those from Brazil know them as just REDFOOT tortoises.

I received this in an email from a 'pet' redfoot owner from Rio.. ( SE Brazil coast ) [ clic 2X to get full-size view ]

RIORedfoot.jpg


What a beauty.. huh?

Not once did she refer to her as anything other than a redfoot!

Terry K
 

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Part of the FIRST email..

Hi

My name is Maria Fernanda and Í'm writing from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Believe it or not, I couldn´t find useful information on Redfoots anywhere else...
Your website is simple but very useful.
I´ve just found you caresheet ... I'm reading right now...
Anyway, the Redfoot tortoise (Jabuti Piranga in Portuguese) and the Yellow foot tortoise (Jabuti Tinga) are my favorite animals and I´m very pround we have these animals in my country.
I have one female and 3 males (one of the males is a Yellow foot). Females are quite rare among the speciments kept as pets.
Two of them, the female (Her name is Quebradinha) and one of the red foot males His name is Valdemar), have been with me from a very young age, although I can´t tell you their exact age when they were given to me as a present from my older brother. But they were very small, perhaps a few months old, back in 1999.

My female laid 4 eggs. She's ten years old, 2.360 kg. I'm not sure this is the first time she's laid eggs (since she spent 4 years with my friend). I think it is. The eggs look just like ping-pong balls: very round and very white (apart from the dirt)

I agree Carl.. a beauty..

RIORedfootII.jpg


.. a closer look..

RioEGGS.jpg


It was quite an education!

Terry K
 

cdmay

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That is a nice looking animal for sure. I have always found the orange headed 'cherryheads' (yes, I still hate that stupid name) to be more attractive than the red headed ones.
It isn't surprising that the Brazilian keeper refers to her tortoises as redfoots and not cherryheads or some other name. Cherryheads ARE redfoots--- But clearly a very different form from the redfoots from Surinam and Guyana, Colombia and Venezuela and the big Chaco tortoises of Bolivia and Paraguay. I have no doubt that they represent a subspecies of C. carbonaria and that someday they will be recognized as such.
In addition, the name cherryhead is mostly a US term that was coined by dealers in the 80s as was mentioned above. You wouldn't expect a person in Brazil to call them cherryheads as that name would have no meaning to them. The same goes for the average person and box turtles here in the United States. A person in Louisiana catches and keeps a three toed box turtle. But they would still most likely call it a box turtle---not a three toed just like it is doubtful that someone in the Florida peninsula would refer to their Florida box turtle by that name. To most people, a box turtle is just a box turtle even though there are many subspecies that are clearly different from one another.
 

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We Americans DO like our marketing terms, don't we? Sigh.
 

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Candy said:
Madkins, I can't believe how big those Redfoots look in the pictures. They look huge do they get that big? And their heads are so red. And if anyone looks at the site that Madkins put up the Redfoots are being fed tomatoes and a lot of them and I even saw a whole apple thrown in there (what about the seeds). I guess males do get a long because there's a lot of Redfoots on that farm. Thanks for the site.

cdmay said:
Candy, no I don't have any females for sale. But they do appear from time to time.

Too bad Carl. I know I would get a good one from you. Anyway if you see any let me know. Thanks. :)



Candy I asked a friend [ earlier this year ] from Sao Paolo(sp?), South America.. [ SW of Rio ] about those tomatoes. She told me those are actually a fruit like cherries.. very sweet and high in vitamin C. Not real tart.. her redfoots love them.

And "most" of the FOREST and rich soil in Brazil in now inhabited by humans and their farms! So maybe the redfoots there [ near that "farm" ] have been pushed out into the low scrub-savanna/desert lands???

FWIW

Terry K
 

Madkins007

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I don't know the actual range of the Brazilian 'red color morph' Red-foot Tortoise in detail, but most reports seem to put it them the eastern bulge of Brazil. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Brazil), this is driest part of Brazil and tends towards scrub and thorn forest. It is very hot on the northern tip and gets cooler as you move south- at the far south, outside of what seems to their range, it sometimes freezes in the cold season.

This habitat sounds a lot like the Gran Chaco, which is probably why Brazilian and Paraguayan torts are so similar in some respects, and why Yellow-foots are found so infrequently there (http://emys.geo.orst.edu/cgi-bin/emysmap?tn=139&cf=ijklmno).
 

allegraf

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The little tomatoes are actually surinam cherries. We planted a tree in our enclosure for the torts, the problem is that the fruits are sweet and tangy and my neice loves eating them too!

Back to the original topic, at one time we had three males. Two of my males get along great and seem to just take turns with the girls. When we introduced the third male, who was bigger than the other two, he quickly established his dominance and started with a warning. He then followed with a quick bite or two. After a few days, he was king of the enclosure. Sadly our big male died when we went to the Daytona show. So the two males are back to equally sharing the kingdom.

We did get another male who is currently in quarantine. He is about the same size of the two males. It will be interesting to see how that introduction goes. Needless to say, we will be expanding our enclosure very soon.

Allegra

Sorry, I meant BARBADOS CHERRIES not the surinam cherries.
 

Candy

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Thanks Allegraf and Terry that makes more sense than tomatoes. But now where do I get those cherries from? Allegraf where do you live? I have never heard of that cherry before and now I want to get some for Dale (he's getting very spoiled with fruit). The rainforests that I saw in the pictures from Madkins does not look like any rainforest that I've imagined before. It actually looks pretty dry where they live. I imagined a rainforest to be raining all of the time and very green. I want to know peoples takes on this. Do they like it wet or dryer when they're big like what is in the pictures?
 
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