My Texas tortoises

[Yvonne G]

For about the past five years a lady here in town gave me several Texas tortoise hatchlings every year to find homes for. This past summer she and her family decided that she was getting too frail to go traipsing out into the back yard to care for the tortoise, so she gave me her whole group. One of the males is in breeding form, meaning the two glands under his chin were quite swollen. He had been fighting and breeding prior to the picture taking and the glands bled on some of the other tortoises.

The males:

and the females:

Only one of the females is pure Gopherus berlandieri. The others are part berlanderi/agassazii.

 

[Torty Mom]

Awesome!!!! They are beautiful! The shells are much darker than Lou's.

 

[Candy]

I'm very surprised to see the males together like that and not fighting Yvonne. Is that normal behavior?

 

[kimber_lee_314]

Beautiful! I love Texas torts. My male won't breed with my females though. I wonder if he is just too old?

 

[byerssusan]

Wow thats an awesome group!!!

 

[Yvonne G]

Candy:

The pen is large enough that they have their own territories. There WAS fighting that day, but its usually not a to-the-death kind of fight. Besides that, they've lived together all their lives, and I imagine they have an established hierarchy.

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

Wow, what a neat group. So, some of the females are Texas-California hybrids, eh? Interesting. Given how closely related Gopherus species are, I would think the hybrids are at least partly fertile. However, I hope only the full-blooded Texas female will be the one to breed.

 

[AnthonyC]

They are beautiful!

 

[Jacqui]

Such an interesting group. Which female is the pure one?

 

[Yvonne G]

Beautiful! I love Texas torts. My male won't breed with my females though. I wonder if he is just too old?

I don't think tortoises get "too old." I know that female tortoises can and do lay viable eggs right up until the day they die. Their bodies don't get old and stop working like mammal bodies do.

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Such an interesting group. Which female is the pure one?

I think its the one in the middle. In real life, she looks slightly different, so its easy to tell her from the others. But in the picture its a little harder.

The lady had two male desert tortoises and someone gave her a female Texas tortoise. They had babies. Eventually the desert tortoises died, and the female continued to mate with her off spring. All of the group is related. Some are half and half, and some are the half/half bred with the full. This probably explains why I have so much trouble keeping the babies alive. Right now I have 6 babies that are starting to feel a little soft. They hatched out last Autumn, so they're about a year old. I was keeping two for myself, two for a friend and two because they were so small. I'm working hard on them, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to keep them alive. I would be interested in knowing if any of the babies I've adopted out in the past are still alive.

 

[Jacqui]

Right now I have 6 babies that are starting to feel a little soft. They hatched out last Autumn, so they're about a year old.

So am I understanding correctly, they hatched out the normal soft, then grew harder shells like they should. Now however, they are going back in time towards a softer shell?

 

[Yvonne G]

Yes. The were given to me as three different clutches from this same lady before she gave me the whole herd. I adopted out most and kept what I've stated above. They spent the whole summer in a Christmas tree storage bin outside with partial sun. Two of them spent some time with Maggie because they felt soft, and when she gave them back they felt ok. They've been inside now with a new UVB MVB for about a month, and three of them are pretty soft, carapace and plastron.

 

[Jacqui]

It sounds like they have a super high calcium intake need that has just clicked on and so they are taking it from their own shell. Huh, weird. Sad too. As I recall, Crazy (Robyn) got a couple from you and didn't they fail to survive with her? Or is my memory being faulty?

 

[Yvonne G]

That's correct. Hers were from the previous year's clutches.

These babies get calcium on each meal, plus for the past week I've been adding liquid calcium to their water and soaking them every a.m. then putting them in a sheltered spot in the sun for a couple hours. So far only one is not eating.

To whoever may be questioning why breed these tortoises: I didn't know they were inbred until earlier this year when the lady gave the whole herd to me and told me their history. I have taken in a male rescue, so I can now keep the original female and put her with the rescue when he's out of quarantine, then adopt out the half-breeds individually.

 

[ascott]

Question Yvonne????

If the Texas female is housed with the Texas male you rescued....how will you be certain that for the next 0-7 or so years that the eggs she drops will not be the tainted inbred relative offspring?

Simply a question sparked from curiosity ....

....if the little inbred offspring appear to fail in the same pattern....likely due to some inherent combination of genes or lack of that does not allow process of calcium intake....you know..like a liger lacking the size limiting gene.....

Very sad for the little babies, huh.

 

[Yvonne G]

A female CAN hold sperm for several years, but I think that's only if conditions aren't right for digging a nest. I really don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that if her eggs are fertilized and she digs a nest and deposits them, she probably won't be holding sperm that year. I may be all wet...its just a guess.

 

[ascott]

LMAO Yvonne....well then we are both all wet.....(not like the Mary Anne all wet LOL--oh yes, I went there lol) as ithe too canwould only guess as eell...it was just a question that popped in my head so spewed it out with ya.....and I bet there is no absolute way to know...kinda like only a gazillion other things we will never know for sure....dang

They are beautiful torts for sure .....I have never cared for the Texas species...do they have some of the same general awesome traits as our CDTs?

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SORRY...about the add on words in weird places.....using my dump smart phone again....uggggghhhhhh

 

[Yvonne G]

Yes. They're very much like the desert tortoise. Very personable.

 

[ascott]

Uhhhhh I did it again....when I said I have never cared for them.....I mean that I have never kept them...not I don't like them....one time I said I did not care for sulcatas and Anthony pointed out to me he thought at first that meant I did not like them...so now I try to use the word keep and not care.....lol

So my OCD compelled me to clear that up real quick....