With the warmer weather and weed season in full swing, I've been letting all the adults loose on the whole five acres. Delores rewarded me with another dozen eggs today.
There is just something really neat/fun/beautiful/amazing about watching giant African tortoises roaming back and forth over a large area and grazing all the way. I've left the pictures full size and totally uncropped. Sometimes the tortoise is just a speck in the distance, but I really wanted to show the scale of it all.
This is Scooter and Chewy canoodling after a tray of Muzuri and weeds was mostly consumed.
This is Deloris in the area where she dug her test hole the day before she dropped her eggs.
This is Big Bertha coming to see what I was doing down toward the bottom of the ranch. This is a big deal for her. She was pretty anti-social when I first got her. She kept to herself and wasn't too interested in what people were doing. Now she's starting to act more and more like a "typical" sulcata. Her appetite and activity level have picked way up in the last couple of months.
This is Chewy. She was a little on the shy side when I got her, but lately has really become much more active and curious. She tends to hang around the top of the ranch where most of the human activity is taking place all day. She has that typical sulcata tendency to sneak up behind you and always be underfoot. I've nearly tripped on her few times. Sometimes I wonder if she chuckles a silent tortoise chuckle when she does this and I nearly trip on her.
Here's Bertha making her way from the top of the ranch down to the bottom.
Delores on the move.
And finally, here's Bertha one more time resting in sulcata paradise. She was eating, but stopped to look up at me as if to say, "What?"
There is just something really neat/fun/beautiful/amazing about watching giant African tortoises roaming back and forth over a large area and grazing all the way. I've left the pictures full size and totally uncropped. Sometimes the tortoise is just a speck in the distance, but I really wanted to show the scale of it all.
This is Scooter and Chewy canoodling after a tray of Muzuri and weeds was mostly consumed.
This is Deloris in the area where she dug her test hole the day before she dropped her eggs.
This is Big Bertha coming to see what I was doing down toward the bottom of the ranch. This is a big deal for her. She was pretty anti-social when I first got her. She kept to herself and wasn't too interested in what people were doing. Now she's starting to act more and more like a "typical" sulcata. Her appetite and activity level have picked way up in the last couple of months.
This is Chewy. She was a little on the shy side when I got her, but lately has really become much more active and curious. She tends to hang around the top of the ranch where most of the human activity is taking place all day. She has that typical sulcata tendency to sneak up behind you and always be underfoot. I've nearly tripped on her few times. Sometimes I wonder if she chuckles a silent tortoise chuckle when she does this and I nearly trip on her.
Here's Bertha making her way from the top of the ranch down to the bottom.
Delores on the move.
And finally, here's Bertha one more time resting in sulcata paradise. She was eating, but stopped to look up at me as if to say, "What?"
