Instant Herd

[October]

Oh my gosh, how beautiful!

---

Are these guys Tortoise Compound or Fife?

 

[ADVANceNA]

hahaha my fault my fault i was too excite for the pics i didnt see the " stork flew in from AZ ... " part haha

 

[Laura]

Eeni Meeni minie Mo.
and tom doesnt live in Utah, so one wife only.. ;-)

 

[DeanS]

I hope they grow up to be as awesome as Aladar.

They'll be a helluva lot smoother...that's for sure! Congrats Tom!

 

[Tom]

October, These are from Richard Fife.

Yvonne, yes they are a little pyramided and they are a bit small for their age, but otherwise healthy and acting pretty normal. They got some sun, a couple of soaks and some Santa Barbara Mix yesterday and all appears good. A bit surprising for something from Richard. It will be kind of neat to see what they do from this point out in my care.

ADVANceNA, This is how Richard Fife explained it in his Ivory tortoise presentation at the TTPG conference in AZ last November: If you bred an Ivory to regular, you'd get 25% Ivory babies and 75% heterozygous (meaning they look normal, but carry the Ivory gene) babies. My four females above are from this type of breeding. If you breed a het to an Ivory, you get 75% Ivories and 25% normal looking, but carrying the het gene. If you breed an Ivory to an Ivory, you should get all Ivories. This is all theories and averages, but this is how it usually pans out in the real world.

I like the Disney theme suggestion. My daughter and I will have to look into that.

Dean, you gotta come see them!!!


Thanks to everyone else. I'm still in that euphoric new tortoise phase right now... I can't believe how amazing the little ones look. Its like they just aren't real...

 

[ADVANceNA]

ADVANceNA, This is how Richard Fife explained it in his Ivory tortoise presentation at the TTPG conference in AZ last November: If you bred an Ivory to regular, you'd get 25% Ivory babies and 75% heterozygous (meaning they look normal, but carry the Ivory gene) babies. My four females above are from this type of breeding. If you breed a het to an Ivory, you get 75% Ivories and 25% normal looking, but carrying the het gene. If you breed an Ivory to an Ivory, you should get all Ivories. This is all theories and averages, but this is how it usually pans out in the real world.

I like the Disney theme suggestion. My daughter and I will have to look into that.

thanks for the reply and for always letting myself and everyone else pick your brain. question, when you say " ... bred an ivory to a het " is that male ivory to a female het or other way around ? and does " ... het to an ivory ... " mean a het male to a ivory female or also other way around ? haha thanks !

 

[Tom]

ADVANceNA, This is how Richard Fife explained it in his Ivory tortoise presentation at the TTPG conference in AZ last November: If you bred an Ivory to regular, you'd get 25% Ivory babies and 75% heterozygous (meaning they look normal, but carry the Ivory gene) babies. My four females above are from this type of breeding. If you breed a het to an Ivory, you get 75% Ivories and 25% normal looking, but carrying the het gene. If you breed an Ivory to an Ivory, you should get all Ivories. This is all theories and averages, but this is how it usually pans out in the real world.

I like the Disney theme suggestion. My daughter and I will have to look into that.

thanks for the reply and for always letting myself and everyone else pick your brain. question, when you say " ... bred an ivory to a het " is that male ivory to a female het or other way around ? and does " ... het to an ivory ... " mean a het male to a ivory female or also other way around ? haha thanks !

It doesn't matter which one is male or female. Although it is my understanding that most adult Ivories are male. Do you remember the charts in high school biology that showed AA, Aa, BB, Bb and the combos you could get mixing the them? Richard had a simple chart that demonstrated this with the Ivory gene and the normal gene.

 

[ADVANceNA]

ADVANceNA, This is how Richard Fife explained it in his Ivory tortoise presentation at the TTPG conference in AZ last November: If you bred an Ivory to regular, you'd get 25% Ivory babies and 75% heterozygous (meaning they look normal, but carry the Ivory gene) babies. My four females above are from this type of breeding. If you breed a het to an Ivory, you get 75% Ivories and 25% normal looking, but carrying the het gene. If you breed an Ivory to an Ivory, you should get all Ivories. This is all theories and averages, but this is how it usually pans out in the real world.

I like the Disney theme suggestion. My daughter and I will have to look into that.

thanks for the reply and for always letting myself and everyone else pick your brain. question, when you say " ... bred an ivory to a het " is that male ivory to a female het or other way around ? and does " ... het to an ivory ... " mean a het male to a ivory female or also other way around ? haha thanks !

It doesn't matter which one is male or female. Although it is my understanding that most adult Ivories are male. Do you remember the charts in high school biology that showed AA, Aa, BB, Bb and the combos you could get mixing the them? Richard had a simple chart that demonstrated this with the Ivory gene and the normal gene.

oohhh my fault my fault i misunderstood when you were saying reg to ivory and het to ivory. i misread and thought you were saying het to ivory and ivory to het. i see what you are saying now i understand and heck yeah i remember those charts, they were called punnet (sp?) squares ! haha bio fundamentals.

so about those females ....

 

[Tom]

so about those females ....

Adult female sulcatas are not very easy to come by. Even when they are occasionally available, they aren't cheap.

Sooooo, an adult female, heterozygous for Ivory, that I spent years raising from a baby, purchased directly from Mr. Richard Fife himself.......

Not much chance of me parting with that Mister!

 

[DeanS]

so about those females ....

Adult female sulcatas are not very easy to come by. Even when they are occasionally available, they aren't cheap.

Sooooo, an adult female, heterozygous for Ivory, that I spent years raising from a baby, purchased directly from Mr. Richard Fife himself.......

Not much chance of me parting with that Mister!

Especially since about the time they're ready to breed, there'll be a couple of blonde fellows waiting...

 

[RV's mom]

How beautiful the little ones! Congrats!

teri

 

[ADVANceNA]

oohhhh no no i wasnt wanting them hahaha oh id never ask someone for their tort ! hahaha no no i meant more along the lines of maybe one of them having a clutch with einstein later down the road so i can have some grandtorts and tryout this whole incubation process. a thousand apologies for the misunderstanding !

---

so about those females ....

Adult female sulcatas are not very easy to come by. Even when they are occasionally available, they aren't cheap.

Sooooo, an adult female, heterozygous for Ivory, that I spent years raising from a baby, purchased directly from Mr. Richard Fife himself.......

Not much chance of me parting with that Mister!

 

[Tom]

Oh jeez. No need to apologize. Its all in good fun. Corey has been trying to talk me out of another leopard for a while now. No harm in trying. I hope that its not "bad form" to ask. I've told several people that I call dibs, if they ever need or want to part with a particular tort. Hope I didn't offend anyone...

About breeding... hmm...
We'd have to ignore quarantine protocols. We'd have to find a female that has never been bred since they can store sperm and produce fertile eggs for at least three years after one breeding. I just heard a story of leopards laying fertile eggs more than five years after the only male died.

...Yep. Looks like your going to have to get your own female. I just happen to have some recent hatchlings that were incubated for female. I might be able to send one your way...

Hey wait. You might already HAVE a female... in that case two females will usually get a long great. But I prefer to keep them in at least trios. Okay, so should I put you down for two? Volume discounts you know...

 

[SnakeyeZ]

I was picturing an oatmeal like substance in a package that you add sun and mist too to get tortoise hatchings.

You have not disappointed me though!

 

[ADVANceNA]

Oh jeez. No need to apologize. Its all in good fun. Corey has been trying to talk me out of another leopard for a while now. No harm in trying. I hope that its not "bad form" to ask. I've told several people that I call dibs, if they ever need or want to part with a particular tort. Hope I didn't offend anyone...

About breeding... hmm...
We'd have to ignore quarantine protocols. We'd have to find a female that has never been bred since they can store sperm and produce fertile eggs for at least three years after one breeding. I just heard a story of leopards laying fertile eggs more than five years after the only male died.

...Yep. Looks like your going to have to get your own female. I just happen to have some recent hatchlings that were incubated for female. I might be able to send one your way...

Hey wait. You might already HAVE a female... in that case two females will usually get a long great. But I prefer to keep them in at least trios. Okay, so should I put you down for two? Volume discounts you know...

aaahhhh the temptation is sssooo strong on this ! haha i dont think i have room to house another tortoise table and einstein would be a little too big (400g +/- 10g) to house with a much smaller, younger hatchling. i will be able to house more once i move into a bigger place. trust me, you'll be the first to know when i can comfortably and without any woes house a new tort

thanks for the insight on the fact that female torts can store sperm, love learning new things, especially tort related.

alright, later down the road during your blondes breeding age, if youre interested to breed one with a non blonde then let me know !! we can set her and einstein on a date since youre not to far from me haha i officially call dibs if you're looking for a non-blonde later. besides, they're about the same age, as einstein is about 10 months old.

 

[wrmitchell22]

Oh my goodness, they are so cute!! Love the pics!

 

[DesertGrandma]

Very cute Tom. I am sure your daughter can come up with some very cute names for the girls. My granddaughter named their blond sulcata Lilo (from Lilo and Stitch).

 

[ADVANceNA]

Very cute Tom. I am sure your daughter can come up with some very cute names for the girls. My granddaughter named their blond sulcata Lilo (from Lilo and Stitch).

awesome name !!

 

[ticothetort2]

Congrats Tom, those little ivories are so unique looking! I look forward to watching them grow w/ the rest of the brood. If ever any of those GPP's become to much to handle w/ all these new mouths to feed, just let me know and I will make a trip up there to foster a couple of them!

 

[HLogic]

Beautiful torts, Tom! Try to refrain from any experimentation on them...