Russian breeding

Status
Not open for further replies.

TortoiseBoy1999

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Messages
2,369
Location (City and/or State)
Palmdale CA

jaizei

Unknown Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Joined
Feb 5, 2011
Messages
9,054
Location (City and/or State)
Earth
Can you or should you? One of those questions was answered by the link. The other is up to you.
 

Ethan D

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2012
Messages
304
Location (City and/or State)
Nebraska
Can you....... Yes............ Should you, in my opinion, No. I do not cross subspecies of any animals just because it is usually frowned upon GREATLY. For instance, someone who breeds a Columbian Boa Constrictor to a Suriname Boa Constrictor ( B.C.I to B.C.C.) , you get a cross species that is very odd, it has the size of a suriname and pattern and temperament of both boas combined. Is some cases cross breeding is very detrimental to the offspring itself. There is a lot to go wrong when making a cross breed, it is a huge gamble.
 

TortoiseBoy1999

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Messages
2,369
Location (City and/or State)
Palmdale CA
But I can do it right? I mean nothing will go wrong? I at least want to try :/ I mean what could go wrong? Boa's are different they have different patterns and stuff, but they are just tortoise's just Russian tortoise :)
 

Blastoise

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2012
Messages
137
I think it would be fine. I have a pretty hard time telling the difference between the subspecies anyway. In fact, I plan on breeding Russians from different subspecies as soon as they are old enough to breed, might be a few more years yet. And yes, nothing will go wrong, healthy little russian tortoises will be the result.
 

TortoiseBoy1999

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Messages
2,369
Location (City and/or State)
Palmdale CA
Blastoise said:
I think it would be fine. I have a pretty hard time telling the difference between the subspecies anyway. In fact, I plan on breeding Russians from different subspecies as soon as they are old enough to breed, might be a few more years yet. And yes, nothing will go wrong, healthy little russian tortoises will be the result.

THANK you Blastoise :)
 

GeoTerraTestudo

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
May 7, 2011
Messages
3,311
Location (City and/or State)
Broomfield, Colorado
As a rule, subspecies can be crossed without any negative effects. The offspring will be viable, healthy, and fertile.

From a purely pet perspective, breeding at or below the species level is safe.

Mixing does, however, tend to lead to intermediate characteristics in the offspring. In other words, if one parent comes from a larger subspecies and the other from a smaller one, the offspring may be intermediate in size. Same thing may apply to color, shape, etc.

From a conservation perspective, that can be bad because the unique traits of each subspecies may be lost, making the offspring less fit for the environment in which the parent species evolved. For example, if one parent was native to a hotter climate, and the other a colder climate, then the offspring, rather than being adapted to both, are likely to be suited to neither.

Again, none of that really matters to a pet living in the backyard. However, at the rate tortoises (and other animals) are becoming endangered, at some point captive lines may be needed for reintroduction in the wild. For that reason, it is better to keep subspecies separate, so that they will make better stock for rewilding someday down the line.
 

CactusVinnie

Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Oct 13, 2011
Messages
300
Location (City and/or State)
Bucharest, Romania z6
"Blastoise" said:
I have a pretty hard time telling the difference between the subspecies anyway.

Blastoise, you have a hard time telling the subspecies because you are dealing mostly with Kazakhstanica, and a little Kuznetzovi intergrades :D - that is as far as I could get, but surely most complicated than that.

@TortoiseBoy1999:
I would wait- anyway having to wait until sexual maturity of tortoise- and look for as much as similar mates for my tortoises.
As GTT said, lots of factors that you cannot immagine go into that ecuation of cross-breeding. Even hobbyst should be responsable and as scientific as possible, because you never know if your "just pet tortoises" would be very important some day- oh, yes, concerning the tortoises, we rather can anticipate that!

Later, when more knowledge will be available for us, people will realise that they shouldn't have cross-bred their tortoises.
Just take the example of Testudo hermanni herzegovinensis X boettgeri hybrids, when none was aware that these are different... or the more flagrant case of T.h.boettgeri X T.h. hermanni (!!!), where even releasing in pure T.h.h. habitat of those hybrids happened. In Var region, France, a study revealed a horror story: 17% of that population were HYBRIDS :(! I don't remember where I read this, but I remember the percentage.
As for T. graeca... also plenty of hybrids between all the african taxons, and with the Ibera group too. Genetic mayhem!!

So, concerning Horsfieldis, we are again at the beginning, making the same mistakes once done with other species/subspecies. We just don't know enough about these tortoises NOW, but we will find later... maybe too late, as for the previous mentioned ones.

Be patient and responsable. You can breed 2 ssp., each one separate, or concentrate on a single one, as you wish. Just try to match them as much as possible.
 

TortoiseBoy1999

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Messages
2,369
Location (City and/or State)
Palmdale CA
CactusVinnie said:
Blastoise, you have a hard time telling the subspecies because you are dealing mostly with Kazakhstanica, and a little Kuznetzovi intergrades :D - that is as far as I could get, but surely most complicated than that.

@TortoiseBoy1999:
I would wait- anyway having to wait until sexual maturity of tortoise- and look for as much as similar mates for my tortoises.
As GTT said, lots of factors that you cannot immagine go into that ecuation of cross-breeding. Even hobbyst should be responsable and as scientific as possible, because you never know if your "just pet tortoises" would be very important some day- oh, yes, concerning the tortoises, we rather can anticipate that!

Later, when more knowledge will be available for us, people will realise that they shouldn't have cross-bred their tortoises.
Just take the example of Testudo hermanni herzegovinensis X boettgeri hybrids, when none was aware that these are different... or the more flagrant case of T.h.boettgeri X T.h. hermanni (!!!), where even releasing in pure T.h.h. habitat of those hybrids happened. In Var region, France, a study revealed a horror story: 17% of that population were HYBRIDS :(! I don't remember where I read this, but I remember the percentage.
As for T. graeca... also plenty of hybrids between all the african taxons, and with the Ibera group too. Genetic mayhem!!

So, concerning Horsfieldis, we are again at the beginning, making the same mistakes once done with other species/subspecies. We just don't know enough about these tortoises NOW, but we will find later... maybe too late, as for the previous mentioned ones.

Be patient and responsable. You can breed 2 ssp., each one separate, or concentrate on a single one, as you wish. Just try to match them as much as possible.

:/
 

dmmj

The member formerly known as captain awesome
10 Year Member!
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
19,695
Location (City and/or State)
CA
So does anyone know if the different subspecies different genetically, or are they just cosmetic differences?
 

GeoTerraTestudo

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
May 7, 2011
Messages
3,311
Location (City and/or State)
Broomfield, Colorado
dmmj said:
So does anyone know if the different subspecies different genetically, or are they just cosmetic differences?

You mean, are the differences in shell shape due to genes or the environment? Well, different populations are going to have different genes. Since Russians don't tend to change much in captivity (barring pyramiding or MBD), I would think the morphological differences are due more to genetics.
 

TortoiseBoy1999

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Messages
2,369
Location (City and/or State)
Palmdale CA
Do you think my Russian could lay egg's? The thought of it is just mind boggling to me! I was looking at my baby (not really a baby, an adult) Russian tortoise today and thought: "but shes to small! She can't possibly lay eggs!" How big are the eggs going to be? I always see Sulcata's and Leopards laying eggs, but they are so big! And what should I keep the babies on? (wet paper towels, coco coir, etc, etc) I am going to breed her for the first time this spring so these questions were running thru my head today and I didn't want to make ANOTHER thread :p thanks guys :)
 

Attachments

  • image-668074014.png
    image-668074014.png
    246.8 KB · Views: 32
  • image-802407825.png
    image-802407825.png
    795.6 KB · Views: 26

Eweezyfosheezy

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Messages
2,365
Location (City and/or State)
Peoria, Arizona
How big is she? From the pics it looks like she's big enough. Testudo eggs are much smaller than any leopard or sulcata egg. Russians only lay a few eggs whereas sulcatas and leopards are can easily go over 10 per clutch.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

New Posts

Top