Different growth rates?

[Deac77]

Do male and females have different growth rates? My sullys are the same age (1 year old) born in June of 2012. Chunk has always been the largest but this summer it seems Scoot has passed him quite a bit. They live outdoors all summer, brought in at night and over the winter, fed a diet of spring mix, Timothy hay, alfalfa, and this sully grass mix I've had to plant 5 times all season. They are misted twice a day with a constant mud pool they frequent. They also get Mazuri every 3-4 days.

I'm located in Lubbock Texas, I'm just curious as to why scoot shot passed chunk, I've never seen any aggression between the 2, they sleep next to each other, they never fight over food and chunk still has the biggest appetite.

 

[Deac77]

Forgot to mention the get mixed greens too, we have 2 iguanas that eat no less than 5 different types a day that they get as well

 

[Livin4Jesus]

Torts will grow at different rates just the same as children do, not every being animal and man are the same! I live about 45 min away and min are the same way

 

[Tom]

They all grow at different rates for a wide variety of reasons, but it tends to be more pronounced when they are kept as a pair. I recommend separating them. They will both be happier.

 

[Thalatte]

Tom...You advocate non pairs and I can understand that-my question is are groups of 3 or four ok?

 

[Tom]

Tom...You advocate non pairs and I can understand that-my question is are groups of 3 or four ok?

Usually yes when they are immature. In most cases mature males will not tolerate each other, although I have seen many instances of larger groups of sulcatas that consisted of multiple mature males and lots of females. I have not seen multiple adult males work in smaller groups though.

I think singles are best, but not practical for people with multiple tortoise. A benefit of housing young ones in groups is that they desensitize to all the tortoise activity around them, and in my experience, they tend to be less aggressive with other tortoises later in life.