Males? I know this has been asked before, but...

[JBF]

Newbie post. We have had 2 red-footed tortoises for 5 years who we thought were females. We just added a third. We hadn't looked closely at the original two in a couple years (oops) and now think they are males. The new one we THOUGHT was a male, but behavior is indicating otherwise. The new one is pretty receptive to mounting and the original one is constantly trailing/mounting/grunting the new one. Is this just two males establishing dominance or is the new one a female? The first two pics are of our original (who we now think is male), the second two pics are of the newbie. Thank you for any help

 

[wellington]

I can't tell by your pics. However, makes will be concaved on their plastron (sunken in)
If you do end up with two males and one female, they should be seperated. The males will fight and with only one female, she will be bugged to illness or death. See what others guesses are.
@N2TORTS @allegraf

 

[allegraf]

No Y chromosomes in your herd. Those two are definitely girls. It is dominence when the girls mount each other, or maybe for fun too.

You can tell at that size, the girls can fit a ping pong ball sized egg through their anal scutes. Also the anal scutes tend to form a U shape. The males are more of a flattened V. The concave plastron is also way more exaggerated in the boys. The males tails would reach and pass one of the back legs. Those are some pretty big botero babes.

 

[Anyfoot]

Dito to allegraf. 100% female. Where's the photo of your 3rd Tortoise?

 

[Anyfoot]

Not the best picture but this is a northern male. Notice wide open v shaped anal scutes and large tail, tail hangs further out than the anal scute.

 

[Pearly]

Newbie post. We have had 2 red-footed tortoises for 5 years who we thought were females. We just added a third. We hadn't looked closely at the original two in a couple years (oops) and now think they are males. The new one we THOUGHT was a male, but behavior is indicating otherwise. The new one is pretty receptive to mounting and the original one is constantly trailing/mounting/grunting the new one. Is this just two males establishing dominance or is the new one a female? The first two pics are of our original (who we now think is male), the second two pics are of the newbie. Thank you for any help
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I have only kept my RF's for 14 months but from all that I've read your torts' anal scute regions are perfectly shaped for laying eggs. I've read of some females with plastron concavity as well. I also know that one sure way to confirm male gender is to winteness the boys' flushing. Apparently most of them like to "show off" their male instrument when reaching mating age

 

[lisa127]

another example of a male.

 

[JBF]

Thank you all so much. We have girls! we thought the original two were female but doubted ourselves this week. I'm glad we don't have to change their names After a day of sniffing and mounting yesterday they seem all settled in today.
Thanks for the help!