Back in the early 70's I started keeping red-footed tortoises. At that time I met Ted Tuchak who also kept red-foots. Ted and I are friends to this day. Anyway, by around 1977 or 78 we had put some of our respective adults together with the hopes of breeding them. Ted had a couple of beautiful Colombian male imports as well as two females. I had females, probably also of Colombian or possibly Venezuelan origin. I say this because during the 60's and early 70's this is where the vast majority of red-foots had been imported from. Regardless, they were of the same phenotype. My females had been around for years before I obtained them and in fact, they had come from the venerable Turtle Lady herself--Ellen Beatty Nicol.
Ted and I managed to get numerous eggs in 1978 but as there was nothing really known about incubation parameters in those days--no Internet, no captive care books, no one else really getting successful reproduction and so forth, so we had to spitball it. So Ted and I guessed at incubation temperatures and humidity settings. Our 'incubator' was Ted's pantry closet that he had placed a heat lamp inside of. The eggs were placed in Tupperware containers with perforated lids and half filled with damp perlite. These containers were placed on shelves (next to canned soup and stuff) at various levels in the pantry. Low tech for sure. We had no idea what temperature to incubated at but we figured that 86 to as high as 90 degrees F. would be good. The heat lamp only had one setting so to regulate the heat it was moved closer to, or further away from the eggs.
Turns out, our temps were way too high and thus we got many fertile eggs that didn't hatch or sadly, we got neonates with terrible deformities and that didn't survive. The next year we dropped the temps down to 83 to 85 degrees. Oh boy, we got hatchlings then! I think we produced 75 or so neonates from Ted's two and my two females.
Since I was only 19 years old that year and we had hatched some gorgeous hatchlings, I decided to keep an especially pretty neonate.
Fast forward seven years...That neonate became a flawless young adult male that I had named 'Jivaro' after an Amazonian Indigenous group. I was married to my high school sweetheart Barbara and she and I had moved to a house where keeping tortoises wasn't really practical. So I gave Jivaro and another young male that we had hatched in 1982 to a local friend and tortoise keeper name Ron Baer. He named the second young male Franklin. The rest of our tortoises went to other keepers.
Fast forward to 2022...I got a call from Ron Baer, in short it was this: "Hey Carl, my wife and I are moving to California. Can't take the tortoises. You want Jerry and Franklin back?" Ron and began to call Jivaro 'Jerry' years ago. WHAT? He still had them? Of course I would take them or find them a home! In the meantime I had arraigned for two good tortoise keeping friends of mine to take the two boys as they keep that population of red-foots. Plus, my friends live close by. We all set up a day in which we would meet at my house for the hand off.
When Barb and I saw Jivaro and Franklin our jaws dropped--they were HUGE! Although their shells were worn from living in Ron's yard with a mostly dirt floor tortoise house, their color was spectacular. Because of their size, the colored legs scutes were (are) as big as marbles. I'm not exaggerating as they are the largest and most impressive leg scutes that I've ever seen.
For the past three years Jivaro and Franklin have been happily living with my friends. I visited them last month and took a couple of photos.
First is Jivaro in 2022.
This is Franklin in 2022...
The old dudes. Me and Ron Baer. Ron is on the right, I'm holding Jivaro.
Jivaro with his head washed off taking in some Ceiba flowers.
Jivaro September 2025. Not bad looking. Mr. Mark Lue, tortoise keeper extraordinaire, holding him up for photos.
Hope you enjoy the photos!
Ted and I managed to get numerous eggs in 1978 but as there was nothing really known about incubation parameters in those days--no Internet, no captive care books, no one else really getting successful reproduction and so forth, so we had to spitball it. So Ted and I guessed at incubation temperatures and humidity settings. Our 'incubator' was Ted's pantry closet that he had placed a heat lamp inside of. The eggs were placed in Tupperware containers with perforated lids and half filled with damp perlite. These containers were placed on shelves (next to canned soup and stuff) at various levels in the pantry. Low tech for sure. We had no idea what temperature to incubated at but we figured that 86 to as high as 90 degrees F. would be good. The heat lamp only had one setting so to regulate the heat it was moved closer to, or further away from the eggs.
Turns out, our temps were way too high and thus we got many fertile eggs that didn't hatch or sadly, we got neonates with terrible deformities and that didn't survive. The next year we dropped the temps down to 83 to 85 degrees. Oh boy, we got hatchlings then! I think we produced 75 or so neonates from Ted's two and my two females.
Since I was only 19 years old that year and we had hatched some gorgeous hatchlings, I decided to keep an especially pretty neonate.
Fast forward seven years...That neonate became a flawless young adult male that I had named 'Jivaro' after an Amazonian Indigenous group. I was married to my high school sweetheart Barbara and she and I had moved to a house where keeping tortoises wasn't really practical. So I gave Jivaro and another young male that we had hatched in 1982 to a local friend and tortoise keeper name Ron Baer. He named the second young male Franklin. The rest of our tortoises went to other keepers.
Fast forward to 2022...I got a call from Ron Baer, in short it was this: "Hey Carl, my wife and I are moving to California. Can't take the tortoises. You want Jerry and Franklin back?" Ron and began to call Jivaro 'Jerry' years ago. WHAT? He still had them? Of course I would take them or find them a home! In the meantime I had arraigned for two good tortoise keeping friends of mine to take the two boys as they keep that population of red-foots. Plus, my friends live close by. We all set up a day in which we would meet at my house for the hand off.
When Barb and I saw Jivaro and Franklin our jaws dropped--they were HUGE! Although their shells were worn from living in Ron's yard with a mostly dirt floor tortoise house, their color was spectacular. Because of their size, the colored legs scutes were (are) as big as marbles. I'm not exaggerating as they are the largest and most impressive leg scutes that I've ever seen.
For the past three years Jivaro and Franklin have been happily living with my friends. I visited them last month and took a couple of photos.
First is Jivaro in 2022.
This is Franklin in 2022...
The old dudes. Me and Ron Baer. Ron is on the right, I'm holding Jivaro.
Jivaro with his head washed off taking in some Ceiba flowers.
Jivaro September 2025. Not bad looking. Mr. Mark Lue, tortoise keeper extraordinaire, holding him up for photos.
Hope you enjoy the photos!
