Redfoot aggression?

jacksknight

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We have two Redfoots, less than a year old and we were wondering how old they are when of if they try to fight? We were just watching them and the younger one climbed over the older completely, then tried to bite the top of his head while he was sitting on him. I know they bite everything to test it, so i think that is what he was doing, but i thought you guys would know better than me.

Thanks!
 

ZEROPILOT

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They actually don't bite everything to test it.
You have a male that needs to be seperated.
What a lot of us do and what I have done is to keep a male...or two with four or five females in a gigantic back yard pen.
Does your situation allow for a large, outdoors pen?
Space is needed with sight barriers.
Sometimes two Redfoot will live together as long as there is enough space. This is almost impossible with other species and isn't a sure thing with Redfoot. But it will sometimes work.
I've never seen one that became aggressive get less aggressive without making changes to the enclosure.
Can you give us some photos of your setup?
Maybe it can be tweaked.
In the meantime. I'd seperated them.
The damage can be shocking once this behavior starts.
 

jacksknight

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They actually don't bite everything to test it.
You have a male that needs to be seperated.
What a lot of us do and what I have done is to keep a male...or two with four or five females in a gigantic back yard pen.
Does your situation allow for a large, outdoors pen?
Space is needed with sight barriers.
Sometimes two Redfoot will live together as long as there is enough space. This is almost impossible with other species and isn't a sure thing with Redfoot. But it will sometimes work.
I've never seen one that became aggressive get less aggressive without making changes to the enclosure.
Can you give us some photos of your setup?
Maybe it can be tweaked.
In the meantime. I'd seperated them.
The damage can be shocking once this behavior starts.

Ill add a bit of info about when happened, i didn't explain it to well since we were headed out.

They had just finished eating and Groot, the slightly large tort was done. He went and climbed back inside on the the fake plants and was half buried in the path leading under the plant. Rocket, they new guy finished and went to the same hide. Since Groot was in his path so to speak he climbed over him to try and get inside. As he was climbing he kinda looked down, i think realizing he was climbing over another tortoise. He looked at him for a few seconds and then reached down to bite, like he was going to pickup food or something. My wife picked him up before we could see what would happen.

I was thinking he just saw the top of his colored head and was going to test it and she what it was. The both do this when we take them outdoors. They wander around and find anything they haven't seen, then bite it like they are testing it. Groot was so interested in my grill brush once he just kept circling it and he would bit at it. Sometimes so hard he lifted his whole front half off the ground.

They are in a 40 gallon aquarium, with lots of cover and clutter to hide in or break line of sight. That is why i was thinking this was more of a testing/accident thing instead of aggression. Rocket is about 6 months old and all of 3 inches. Groot is 3.5 inches so there is a ton of room in there for them for now. I think they are way to small to be in an outdoor en closer, any racoon or rat could shred them i'm sure.

Hope this helps, thanks for the reply!
 

Tom

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Tortoises should not be kept in pairs. Even if you don't see overt hostility, it is still a bad situation and causes long term chronic stress. They don't want to share territory and resources.

We had a lady join the forum a couple of years ago with a similar situation with two red foot tortoises housed together. 3 or 4 of us told her to separate them, and we were ignored. Six weeks later, she came back asking us how to help her one tortoise. Apparently the other red foot had eaten the entire tail and most of the back leg of its cage mate.

When we tell people this we are usually treated to an incredulous response about how lots of people keep RFs together and it is fine. These are GROUPS, not pairs, and these groups are usually housed in large outdoor enclosures with lots of room and lots of sight barriers, kind of like how Zero explained. Most of the time RF groups get along very well, but even when everything is done "correctly' there are still cases where it just doesn't work. Pairs almost never work, even when the people think its working.

Hope this helps. It is intended to.
 

jacksknight

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Tortoises should not be kept in pairs. Even if you don't see overt hostility, it is still a bad situation and causes long term chronic stress. They don't want to share territory and resources.

We had a lady join the forum a couple of years ago with a similar situation with two red foot tortoises housed together. 3 or 4 of us told her to separate them, and we were ignored. Six weeks later, she came back asking us how to help her one tortoise. Apparently the other red foot had eaten the entire tail and most of the back leg of its cage mate.

When we tell people this we are usually treated to an incredulous response about how lots of people keep RFs together and it is fine. These are GROUPS, not pairs, and these groups are usually housed in large outdoor enclosures with lots of room and lots of sight barriers, kind of like how Zero explained. Most of the time RF groups get along very well, but even when everything is done "correctly' there are still cases where it just doesn't work. Pairs almost never work, even when the people think its working.

Hope this helps. It is intended to.

Thanks for the reply! Would adding more tortoises help? Even not knowing what sex they are, since they would be very small. I guess my biggest concern was how young they are when they start showing this kind of behavior. We are going to be moving next year into our own place, then we plan on making permanent outdoor housing for them. Until that happens we can either add more tortoises or separate them.

Thanks for the advice!
 

Tom

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Thanks for the reply! Would adding more tortoises help? Even not knowing what sex they are, since they would be very small. I guess my biggest concern was how young they are when they start showing this kind of behavior. We are going to be moving next year into our own place, then we plan on making permanent outdoor housing for them. Until that happens we can either add more tortoises or separate them.

Thanks for the advice!

Generally speaking, more tortoises in a group disperses any aggression and the increased activity tends to distract them from aggression.

Usually, a group of RFs will work out just fine, but if it doesn't work, you'll have to house them all individually. If you are prepared to do that, then go for it. If you don't want that many individual tortoise enclosures to maintain, you might be better off separating them, and not adding any more.
 

Anyfoot

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Thanks for the reply! Would adding more tortoises help? Even not knowing what sex they are, since they would be very small. I guess my biggest concern was how young they are when they start showing this kind of behavior. We are going to be moving next year into our own place, then we plan on making permanent outdoor housing for them. Until that happens we can either add more tortoises or separate them.

Thanks for the advice!
What was the bigger one eating before it nearly got bit?
Add more torts, more hides and more feeding areas if you can. You can have a huge enclosure but if they have to feed and sleep together it's pointless.
 

jacksknight

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What was the bigger one eating before it nearly got bit?
Add more torts, more hides and more feeding areas if you can. You can have a huge enclosure but if they have to feed and sleep together it's pointless.

They had been eating dandelion. They have tons of hiding places and i haven't found them together yet in the same place. We are going to put a divide in today to separate them just in case. We are totally open to getting more to have a larger group as well, how many do you think we should get?
 

Anyfoot

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They had been eating dandelion. They have tons of hiding places and i haven't found them together yet in the same place. We are going to put a divide in today to separate them just in case. We are totally open to getting more to have a larger group as well, how many do you think we should get?
I'd get 2 more and see how it goes. If that one ends up being separated out you will still have a group of 3. If you only get 1 and end up taking that 'aggressive one out' then you'll end up with the pair problem again.
I've never seen this problem with my babies but I have loads together, maybe there's too much going on for one to spot ball another.

I had an aggressive sub adult male that I thought was going to have to go, but he calmed down and seems ok now.

A few weeks back I went to see a lady who has an adult female redfoot (13" SCL) and a rescued male redfoot (7" SCL). Everytime she puts them together the male is extremely aggressive. It's the first time I've seen a redfoot like this, ramming, biting her nose and limbs really hard. Relentlessly chasing her down. The large adult female was very frightened and you could see her cowering and trying to run away whilst hissing. It wasn't pleasant to see. So I'm guessing anyone can get a bully, let's hope yours was an isolated incident, add more and watch carefully.

Just out of interest are they Brazilians or northerns?
 

ZEROPILOT

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I've had harmonious groups mostly. Luckily.
But there is from time to time an individual that will not behave.
Usually it's a male. But not always.
I no longer keep males. Just females. And now an already bossy female has taken over the Alpha role.
It's still pretty mild and she has three other females to annoy so none gets too much of her attitude.
She also has not bitten anyone.
 

Baoh

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Without seeing it myself, I cannot say if it is truly aggression. The species is usually more prone to it in male-male combat when maturing or mature, although some males are okay with each other. Especially if raised together. There is nothing wrong with establishment of a hierarchy in a colony as long as the animals within the colony settle safely into their tiers. If there are outright attacks, then one should remove the offending animal in a colony and reevaluate the design of things. Babies will clamber over babies when they are in the path. They will do the same to a stone, a plant, or a lump of dirt. Females will sometimes behave dominantly. Either conditionally like when gravid or absolutely due to individual personality. It could just as easily be exploratory curiosity since you are working with babies. Singular events are not necessarily equivalent to patterns. Sometimes an animal may nibble at its own forelimb scale because of scent from food particles stuck on it or an attractive color. Maybe we should make a separate cage for the leg, too. ;) My juveniles will bite at a reflection of color on a shiny surface. Know what that means? Nothing of consequence. More seriously, observing things carefully will be your best asset here. At the moment, I have six pairs going for this species on-site and another female-female pair off-site. I also have three singular animals of this species and a trio. None of these that I have display aggression issues, although one will push her cagemates out of the way when she is pacing prior to nesting. She does the same if there is a piece of wood in her way during those phases as well. Tortoise-on-wood aggression. Oh, my. Gotta pull out that piece of wood and put it in its own enclosure for wood forever. ;) I arrange pens for harmony, although they vary in their arrangements. If you force animals to be together that are having issues, you will get a bad result. Depending on the individual animals, their sexes, and how they are set up, they are often capable of living together peacefully, whether one, two, or twenty. I recommend strong caution against having two mature males together. It can work, but you can come home to wicked aftermath if it does not. There is no absolute prescription for a good combination with these animals, so it is important to observe them well.
 

jacksknight

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Without seeing it myself, I cannot say if it is truly aggression. The species is usually more prone to it in male-male combat when maturing or mature, although some males are okay with each other. Especially if raised together. There is nothing wrong with establishment of a hierarchy in a colony as long as the animals within the colony settle safely into their tiers. If there are outright attacks, then one should remove the offending animal in a colony and reevaluate the design of things. Babies will clamber over babies when they are in the path. They will do the same to a stone, a plant, or a lump of dirt. Females will sometimes behave dominantly. Either conditionally like when gravid or absolutely due to individual personality. It could just as easily be exploratory curiosity since you are working with babies. Singular events are not necessarily equivalent to patterns. Sometimes an animal may nibble at its own forelimb scale because of scent from food particles stuck on it or an attractive color. Maybe we should make a separate cage for the leg, too. ;) My juveniles will bite at a reflection of color on a shiny surface. Know what that means? Nothing of consequence. More seriously, observing things carefully will be your best asset here. At the moment, I have six pairs going for this species on-site and another female-female pair off-site. I also have three singular animals of this species and a trio. None of these that I have display aggression issues, although one will push her cagemates out of the way when she is pacing prior to nesting. She does the same if there is a piece of wood in her way during those phases as well. Tortoise-on-wood aggression. Oh, my. Gotta pull out that piece of wood and put it in its own enclosure for wood forever. ;) I arrange pens for harmony, although they vary in their arrangements. If you force animals to be together that are having issues, you will get a bad result. Depending on the individual animals, their sexes, and how they are set up, they are often capable of living together peacefully, whether one, two, or twenty. I recommend strong caution against having two mature males together. It can work, but you can come home to wicked aftermath if it does not. There is no absolute prescription for a good combination with these animals, so it is important to observe them well.

Thanks for the reply! We are keeping a close eye on them just in case, but i think this time was a case of him just testing. He glanced down and saw something colorful that smelled like fresh dandelion. We are building a small divider tonight though, just in case it comes to separating them. We may still go ahead and get another tort ( or 5 :) ) just in case.

This is what there habitat looks like for now. We added a separate feeding area and two bowls of water, so they won't feel the need to compete while eating. This is where we plan on keeping them until we move next year into our own house. Going to be shopping for a new place that can accommodate at least 5 adult reds in the backyard. Let me know what you think, or if there is anything we should add.

IMG_20171212_163458769.jpg
 

Baoh

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Multiple feeding and watering stations make for a good move.

I will tell you I am not a big fan of using the sphagnum moss extensively because it soaks up urine and can contribute to shell fungus via indirect avenues, but some people make it work and just because I do not personally prefer it does not mean it will not work well for you. You could use all sorts of things as alternatives. Unglazed tile cut into sections with a series of duplicates makes for easy cleaning (you pull one set out and put it into a peroxide solution or a bleach solution for cleaning while you put the other set in; not both chemicals at once or you will have a chlorine gas cloud result) and provide firm footing. You can alternate color schemes if it pleases you with the tile swapping. After cleaning, dry it and store it and it will be ready for the next time you want to clean (and tile makes feces easier to spot clean). You can leave a gap for a loose substrate section with moss, coir, soil, bark chips, mulch, leaf litter, or other stuff. If you keep a section with loose substrate, you can add isopods as an edible cleanup crew.

In terms of arrangement, I would probably move the plants centrally and put the lighting to one side. Say over the center of a side third if you divided the enclosure into thirds in your mind. Tortoises tend to patrol perimeters, so I like to keep those more clear and move plants into the center as an "island" to retreat to/behind. Or maybe a plant in one corner and another in the center with the rest of the perimeter free. I tend to prefer live plants, but nobody is going to die because of using fake ones. The lighting being to one side will create dimmer spaces. Individuals will vary in their embraces of lighting intensities. You could add one of those half-log cave things. If you do, set it so that both ends are open. That way they can enter from either end and come and go as they please without being blocked by the other.

Just some ideas. There are lots of ways to do a good job with these guys.
 

jacksknight

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Multiple feeding and watering stations make for a good move.

I will tell you I am not a big fan of using the sphagnum moss extensively because it soaks up urine and can contribute to shell fungus via indirect avenues, but some people make it work and just because I do not personally prefer it does not mean it will not work well for you. You could use all sorts of things as alternatives. Unglazed tile cut into sections with a series of duplicates makes for easy cleaning (you pull one set out and put it into a peroxide solution or a bleach solution for cleaning while you put the other set in; not both chemicals at once or you will have a chlorine gas cloud result) and provide firm footing. You can alternate color schemes if it pleases you with the tile swapping. After cleaning, dry it and store it and it will be ready for the next time you want to clean (and tile makes feces easier to spot clean). You can leave a gap for a loose substrate section with moss, coir, soil, bark chips, mulch, leaf litter, or other stuff. If you keep a section with loose substrate, you can add isopods as an edible cleanup crew.

In terms of arrangement, I would probably move the plants centrally and put the lighting to one side. Say over the center of a side third if you divided the enclosure into thirds in your mind. Tortoises tend to patrol perimeters, so I like to keep those more clear and move plants into the center as an "island" to retreat to/behind. Or maybe a plant in one corner and another in the center with the rest of the perimeter free. I tend to prefer live plants, but nobody is going to die because of using fake ones. The lighting being to one side will create dimmer spaces. Individuals will vary in their embraces of lighting intensities. You could add one of those half-log cave things. If you do, set it so that both ends are open. That way they can enter from either end and come and go as they please without being blocked by the other.

Just some ideas. There are lots of ways to do a good job with these guys.

Thanks so much for the reply!

I don't care for the moss either, but they are my wife's babies lol. She actually has coco chor underneath that, with a thin layer of moss so they can dig in a little bit. We will try to do some rearranging like you suggest and see if we can get a better setup going. I liek the idea of using tile, so we will check into that as well. I'll post some pics once we change the setup.
 
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