Introducing new tortoise to exist'g tortoise

[Dupey19]

Hello. I have a 2/3 year old male horsfield which ive had for a year. And over the weekend brought a 4 year old female Just wondering what everyone does to introduce them to eachother without high risk of either getting brutally hurt. Hopefully in the future want to breed them but not until they are older!!

 

[laney]

Where did you get them both? You normally have to quarantine a new tort incase it makes your excising tort sick unfortunately.

 

[GBtortoises]

You should definitely quarantine the new arrival for at least 90 days to ensure that it is disease free, strong and healthy. But after that the issue is going to be keeping a single Russian female with a male Russian tortoise. Male Russian tortoises, once mature, are typically very territorial and will usually aggressively defend their territory against other males. When a female is introduced she is usually almost immediately courted aggressively. In a confined indoor enclosure this can lead to high levels of stress and sometimes injury to the female from the constant aggressive attention. Usually a single female Russian tortoise is not going to be able to be kept with a male. In general most Testudo species are somewhat the same and if kept together should not be in male/female pairs but in groups of one male to at least 2-3 females. This ratio takes the pressure off any one female. Ideally, males should be kept seperate from females except for breeding purposes.

 

[biochemnerd808]

I agree 100% with GBtortoises. This is a lesson I learned the hard way.