Meet our new Tort!

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

We finally picked her up today! Here are some pics of her meeting her new friend Bixby! Still looking for names if anyone has some suggestions she is the smaller one, the larger one is Bixby who we have had about 3 months

 

[christinaland128]

How exciting! Congrats!

 

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

How exciting! Congrats!

Thank you!

 

[NicoleB26]

Beautiful!

 

[Merrick]

ARe those two torts housed together alone and did you by any chance quarantine the new guy other wise congrats!!

 

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

They are housed together alone. And the new one has been kept by herself at a friends house for 2 weeks before we took her

 

[Tom]

For future reference a quarantine of at least several months should be observed before putting tortoises together. There are a lot of bad diseases circulating around "out there" right now.

Tortoises should not be kept in pairs. That first pic is a really bad sign. That is overt obvious tortoise aggression right there. Pairs are just too personal and the stress can kill them over the long term. I strongly suggest separating them. We had another member here with two RFs a few months back who failed to heed this advice. She thought everything was fine and they would work it out. Over a period of about 6 weeks the dominant one literally ate the tail and part of the hind leg of the other one. Why she let this go on for so long and why she would post about her mistake on the internet escapes me, but there it was none the less.

If you want to keep more than one you need a group, in a large enclosure, and newcomers need to be quarantined and fecal checked before joining their new enclosure mates.

 

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

Thanks for the info. However we have closely monitored them. There has been zero aggressive behavior. Had you seen what happened after the pic you would have seen the smaller one curl up next to the larger one and nap

 

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

Ps fecal was also checked twice before housing together.

 

[Lyn W]

They are lovely and I can understand your excitement, however I would heed Tom's advice - he is a very experienced keeper and knows what he's talking about. So keep a very close eye on them. They may be OK while they are young but bullying is very subtle and often mistaken for playing or affection. The less dominant tort can be stressed and you wouldn't even notice it until it becomes ill. I wish you luck with them though.