oops! any advice??

[rhachic]

Well, I had an incident of my male leopard tortoise somehow (we think he actually pushed under a 2x6" board separating his pen from the girls) getting into the girl's enclosure. We were made aware of his presence in their pen when we heard an odd grunting sound from the other side of the yard! When we got to the girl's pen we saw him mounting and ATTEMPTING to breed with the smaller of our two female leopards. He definitely was successfully copulating yet, but we have no idea when he snuck in there. As of 5pm last night he was still in his pen, but it is now 1pm the following day...what we're now wondering is, will out 4.5lb (6.5" plastron) and 5.5lb (8.5" plastron) females be okay if he was actually successful? Has anyone ever had such a young/low weight female breed and be okay? Any input would be appreciated! Obviously if the deed was done there's not much to do but wait, but we want to know if there is anything we should do for our girls just in case by some chance they end up gravid. We weren't planning to breed them for another 2-3 years minimum so we're not sure how we should proceed now with this current situation. And yes, he has since been separated and we are making modifications to his pen to prevent any more love escapes! lol

 

[tortadise]

Its very unlikely at that size. Your going to see females start their egg cycles more around 10" at the earliest. But yah never know, weird things can happen.

 

[rhachic]

okay, so you think even if he did breed nothing will happen? That would be such a relief! I know breeding isn't suggested until 10lbs minimum, but you're referencing inches...do you mean to say they can breed at that plastron length or is it a typo? I know weight is typically more important than length but would like to hear from someone with some experience as I have 0 when it comes to breeding tortoises!

 

[Tortoise Hub]

Yes it mostly has to do with the length of the tortoise. Most likely nothing at all happened but theres a lot we havent figured out about tortoises and they surprise us all the time. 10 inches for a female is typically the minimum for producing eggs.

 

[wellington]

I have no experience. However, a member had a tortoise die because she had lots of eggs and thought the tortoise was too small. So if there is any signs that any of the females might actually have eggs, I would have a vet check them out. Again I only say this because the other member lost hers. See what others say.

 

[Greg T]

Those females are too small and young still most likely. He can try all he wants but if they are mature enough then nothing will happen. On the plus side, looks like you have an active male in case you plan on breeding them in the future.

 

[rhachic]

Thanks for the advice guys, i'll keep an eye out and make sure the females are all behaving normally just in case. Luckily i have a good friend nearby that is a tortoise lover and vet who already told me she'll help me out if there's signs of trouble
And yeah, he's constantly showing me his genitles when i bathe him lol. He tried mounting the girls when they were still only a year old and we didn't know their sexes and ended up separating them then. So i'm not real surprised that was his first task when he got into their pen!

Also, quick question, just to make sure we're clear. When I give their measurements, i'm talking from the top of the plastron by their head to where it scoops in at the very base of their tail/cloaca area...am I doing that right or am I supposed to go out to the farthest points on the plastron or include the carapace??