Presentation of my Sulcatas + Pardalis (Photos, Enclosure, website)

[Juan V]

i already replaced the infrared light for a ceramic one that doesn't emmit light. I've also increased the temperature values as well as the humidity.

Whenever those two sulcatas start bullying the pardalis we'll see what measures to take. ATM the pardalis is three or four times their size and atm there is no problem, but i'm monitoring the situation closely to see how everything goes.

 

[Tom]

Whenever those two sulcatas start bullying the pardalis we'll see what measures to take. ATM the pardalis is three or four times their size and atm there is no problem, but i'm monitoring the situation closely to see how everything goes.

Intimidation and stress can occur with no physical contact at all. The presence of these other tortoises of a different and foreign species, with entirely different demeanors and body language is enough to induce stress. There does not have to be an all out physical attack for this housing situation to be a problem.

Do you know anyone who keeps chameleons? Ask them about visual stress. If a chameleon even sees another chameleon in a different cage across the room they get all stressed out. Its enough to make them go off food and eventually get sick and die. Color changing lizards are just able to demonstrate their displeasure at the situation better than our tortoises can with their hard shells, overall lack of body language, and lack of chromatophores.

Your tortoises need to be separated.

 

[Juan V]

Tom I think you are giving tortoises human attributes, which is something we all commonly do. Tortoises lack any kind of rational thought or any sort of resemblance to human emotion. The stress they could get to feel is way simpler, way different to the kind of stress that we could feel, and in those ocasions you can always know what kind of level of stress there is inside a tortoise. Some tortoises experience social bonds between them and other members of a "pack". What kind of bonds we can't really know, but it has been seen in some species that this behaviour makes them stay together, or at least tolerate each other together in many ways. For instance, galapagos tortoises tend to group together in muddy shallow lakes and small swamps. Don't get me wrong, they are indeed extremely lonely animals, just like pretty much any other reptile, but there is some kind of mechanism they have, to distinguish "threat" from "non-threat".

I've had turtles my entire life (thraechemys scripta elegans). Now, i know their behaviour is totally different from a sulcata tortoise, but some things can be brought in common. Whenever they sun bathed for instance, they all got out of the water and obliviously sun bathed without any problem what so ever no matter what turtle stood on top of who. The smaller ones would crawl on top of the big ones and sunbath. Territorial disputes between males were rather non existant, since the pond in which we had them was big enough, and their only fights were against other females (in this species, females are generally almost twice as big as males) to have sex with them.

From what i've seen, stress can be visually identified in many ways within tortoises. Tortoises can be very territorial, and when this happens, their attitude changes radically. They become more agressive with their siblings. They normally hide away from the agressive other, trying to be ignored from one and other.

However, what i've seen is that most of the times, these tortoises always or almost always sleep together. I've done some experiments myself even with some other species too (Testudo Graeca). For a whole week I disposed two diferent "hiding places" in one enclosure and both tortoises would always sleep together (spend the night, call it as you like). Sometimes in one hiding place, sometimes in the other hiding place, but generally wherever you found one, you'd find the other one. I tried this in several different enclosures and the same phenomenom also happened.

I'm pretty sure that, if these torts were put in a free environment, they would each roam in their own direction never to see each other again, but in a closed environment these things tended to happen. Why? that's still a mistery. I doubt it could be because one is dominant and the other one is more submissive, since they are still hatchlings I don't feel they have any kind of territorial or sexual urges to solve with one and other.

The point i'm trying to make is that , if a tortoise felt any kind of stress from one and other, it would be difficult to see, but in some points you could guess wether or not the tortoise was thriving or suffering.

There is one very immediate indicator of thriveness in tortoises, and that's the way they sleep or absorb heat. Whenever you see a tortoise totally out of it's shell, sleeping with their heads lying out in the ground, you know the tortoise is thriving and that it's stress level is 0, just as whenever you hear a cat purring it means it feels safe and happy.

I don't have the picture right now, but the other day the three of them were happily sleeping together, one had her head lying on the other one's shell whilst this one was totally out of her shell, almost like stretching, in an apparent comfortable position. I say happily sleeping in a tortoise way, whatever a tortoise feels like "happy" or "calm" . This is something common amongst both tortoises and turtles. They expose themselves, ridding themselves of any sense of danger and just absorbing heat, which is, basically what tortoises like to do most, other than sleeping or eating (or mating given the time).

Do not get me wrong, having many tortoises in one same enclosure could lead to stress between them, and this kind of stress would reach a point in which it's effects would be clearly visible on one of the animals. This is why I always check on them. You are right tom, things could get bad or ugly for them just by being together. This type of agressive behaviour could be more noticable under harder conditions, but I think that as long as they are hatchlings, and as long as their habitat is good enough (good temp, good sunlight, good food) this shouldn't be an issue. If it became one I would immediatly separate them. ATM I could separate them into three smaller enclosures , but this would mean that for each one of them their space would be reduced by 2/3 , and I think ATM that would be worse than just letting them be and see how it goes. As long as they keep behaving the same way they are behaving right now it won't be an issue. And when they get big, their pen will be so big that this shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Juan V]

btw this is the kind of attitude I was talking about

= no stress

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Tom, put human emotions on torts? ...that's a first.

I have my thoughts, opinions and limited experience on this. But someone with more "under their belt" would be better equipped to dissect this.

 

[Juan V]

Tonight two of them were sleeping on 1 place and 1 in the other, 2 hours later I checked and one of them had moved to live with the other one. And none of them were sleeping in the place they usually sleep the most.
Why? How? :-S