Multiple Males?

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tortoiseluvr

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I have been working on a pancake tortoise breeding project for about 2 years now (1 male, 2 females), and my 2 females have both recently produced an egg (one currently in the incubator, but the other broke in the incubator :( I think the one still in the incubator is infertile, but now I know both females are capable of breeding :D The male on the other hand has barely shown any interest in breeding.

I was reading an article, and it suggested multiple males can encourage breeding between them, so I was wondering if anyone here agreed with this? Do you think the addition of another male might help?
 

DriveWRX

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Multiple males can work. There is risk of injury to one or both, though.
I've had males fight to the point where it looked like they were trying to bite each others front legs off! Sometimes the aggression is aimed toward the females too.

And sometimes it's the female who's the aggressor!
Here's one who just wasn't in the mood...
She flipped him right over! Just look at that technique!

Female-Pancake-Flip.jpg



As an alternative to another male, keeping the sexes apart helps too. House the male by himself for a while and introduce him back to the females and see if he's interested. If so, keep him there. If not, take him out and try again later.

I had to separate my group for a long time because I moved into a new house and did not have anything proper to set then up in. Each male had his own tub and I kept females in groups of two in their own tubs.
Long story short, I finally got around to rebuilding their proper enclosures and I set them up in trios like yours , one male to two females.
The females moved in first and I let them get used to their new surroundings. Later I introduced the males.
Let me tell you, it only took a couple minutes before every male was trying to mount a female... :p

With that being said, I have kept multiple males and females together with no problems.
 

african cake queen

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thats a great pancake battle picture. my snip get aggressive when i put a fake tort. in there with him. i then hit the spray bottle and he comes running. he doesnt let his girl get far without him.
 

dmmj

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At one of my recent tortoise club meetings someone said that 2 males are preferred for pancakes because it encourages fighting and produces testosterone in the males.
 

african cake queen

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dmmj said:
At one of my recent tortoise club meetings someone said that 2 males are preferred for pancakes because it encourages fighting and produces testosterone in the males.

its true, the fight makes them go in a battle mode. its pretty cool.i think snip would go nuts if i put a male in there with them.need lots of room for keeping more than 2 or 3 cakes.i will get another female for my znip, some day.
 
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