Kiwi8
New Member
Hello,
I’m hoping someone can help with sexing our two Hermann Tortoises. We have had them for 10+ years but have never been 100% clear on the sex.
We have been told by two vets and the breeder that Bowser is male and Flo is female (hence the names!), I think this is because of their tail shape and lengths.
However we have noticed in more recent years that Bowser displays a lot of female behaviour, whilst Flo has very male in behaviour. Flo is always the one to mount Bowser, never the other way around and before trying to mount ‘she’ will chase Bowser around head butting and biting ‘him’. Bowser displays a lot of ‘pregnant’ female behaviour such as becoming very restless (climbing, digging, and being generally very restless), we have also noticed ‘him’ digging holes in mud in both their table and in the garden. There has been eggs laid in the past which were not fertilised but we did not see which tortoise laid them.
When bathing them today I noticed this pink coming from Flo who we thought was the female. I have attached a photo of this and also attached a photo of both tails.
Very confusing and if someone can shed some light that would be really helpful! We would really like to give the female the best opportunity to lay and incubate eggs but we obviously need to be sure who the female is.
Any advice much appreciated
I’m hoping someone can help with sexing our two Hermann Tortoises. We have had them for 10+ years but have never been 100% clear on the sex.
We have been told by two vets and the breeder that Bowser is male and Flo is female (hence the names!), I think this is because of their tail shape and lengths.
However we have noticed in more recent years that Bowser displays a lot of female behaviour, whilst Flo has very male in behaviour. Flo is always the one to mount Bowser, never the other way around and before trying to mount ‘she’ will chase Bowser around head butting and biting ‘him’. Bowser displays a lot of ‘pregnant’ female behaviour such as becoming very restless (climbing, digging, and being generally very restless), we have also noticed ‘him’ digging holes in mud in both their table and in the garden. There has been eggs laid in the past which were not fertilised but we did not see which tortoise laid them.
When bathing them today I noticed this pink coming from Flo who we thought was the female. I have attached a photo of this and also attached a photo of both tails.
Very confusing and if someone can shed some light that would be really helpful! We would really like to give the female the best opportunity to lay and incubate eggs but we obviously need to be sure who the female is.
Any advice much appreciated