Territorial agression?

[yagyujubei]

I have been bringing everybody outside now for about 2 weeks since it's been so nice here.(83 today) My 7 juveniles are in a 6x6 little pen which I drag around every couple of days to choice pickings. My largest 18 month old juvenile, Hrothgar(7 1/2" and 1500g)is starting to get a little big for the "baby" pen, so I put him in with my big female, who seemed to ignore him. A little later, I was outside again doing a head count,and I saw him being followed by the female, who was trying to bite him, but he was just walking away seeming oblivious to his pursuer. She really couldn't reach anything important, and was biting over the top of his shell. I was amazed by this, and removed him back to his old haunts. I will continue to introduce them, but I'll watch them a little closer next time. She's got about 25 pounds on him.

 

[DesertGrandma]

Wow. That is really surprising Dennis. I thought leopards would be more accepting of each other. Will be anxious to hear other leopard owners thoughts on this.

 

[kimber_lee_314]

I introduced a new female to my group and one of the other females kept ramming her for a day or two. I just kept an eye on them until she got over her little tantrum. They are fine now. Hope that was helpful!

 

[Greg T]

When my three are out in the yard, they pretty much separate to different areas. One is possessive of the porch and will ram the others if they climb into his territory. Strangely, when all three are in their inside enclosure during bad weather, they all play nicely and huddle together to sleep at night. Overall though, they get along together really well. Just give yours a little more time to adjust and I bet they will be fine too, but keep an eye on them because of the difference in size.

 

[Neal]

It's full blown mating season here. We have been seeing a lot of aggression in both males and females.

 

[Tom]

The Gpp are much less tolerant of each other than the babcocks usually are. The breeder where ours came from usually has to keep only one male per enclosure. He calls their behavior much more "sulcata-like" than the babcocki. He has at least a half dozen pens of each spread out over several acres. It is fascinating to sit and watch the differences in behavior.

I have also seen that a tortoise that has been kept alone for a while can get very territorial or just plain aggressive toward any other tortoise. My little 4 year old female sulcata Daisy is the most extreme example I have seen of this. I tried to put my yearlings in with her and even on neutral ground, she attacked them viciously on sight. At Yvonne's suggestion, I threw her little a$$ in with the adults and she immediately went after the adults too. It was pretty funny watching a four pound juvenile trying to fight a 70 pound adult. The adult females would simply ignore her and walk away when they felt like it, or just continue grazing as if Daisy wasn't there. If Daisy got in their way as they grazed or walked, they would just push through her. She once charged at Scooter, the male, and he pushed her back a couple of feet. That seemed to startle her. She turned around to leave and he gave her the old sniffing routine for a minute before allowing her to leave. After a week or so, she settled in and stopped her non-sense. I think having all the movement and other tortoises around her, plus being powerless to affect them at all, plus the feeling of helplessness around Scooter, settled her right down. Things have been quite harmonious since that first week.