Leo Tortoise and Boxie

[Kalavera]

I have an outdoor playpen for my turtles 4 foot in diameter. My turtles are tiny right now, under 3 inches both are pretty much the same size. One is a leopard tortoise and one is a eastern boxie. Is it safe to let them stay in there with each other for a few hrs?

 

[johnsonnboswell]

No, species should not be mixed or together. Good you asked.

 

[Gillian M]

Welcome to the forum.

You could read "beginners' thread" and "Enclosure" one which will certainly help you.

 

[wellington]

No, please don't, very bad idea and one could get very sick and or die.

 

[wellington]

Oh and they should not share the same pen, even if it's not at the same time.

 

[Tom]

I agree with the above. They need separate quarters both indoors and out.

 

[CanadianTestudo]

people do successfully keep tortoises together, but most of the time this is with tortoises of the same species in very very large enclosures. The tortoises are not more likely to get sick than when you keep ones of the same species together (at least I don't see why, @wellington can you tell us why?), but I also wouldn't recommend it. Don't want one eating the poop of the other (just saying this cause my boxie is very fond of her own poop and I'm sure would munch down on other tortoise poop too. Also, the different diet and environment conditions. Boxies need meat in their diet while leopards don't. Also different levels of humidity and temperature. Baby boxies are best housed wet when hatchlings (semi aquatic really), while this is probably not what you want for leopards. The leopard is also going to grow much quicker and might become a bully.

 

[wellington]

Different species, specially from different parts of the world can carry pathogens/disease/bugs, whatever you want to call them that the other species would never come across and so could never build up immunities to fight them off. Very bad idea. Even the same species should be quarantined as to not pass on anything it may have onto the rest of the herd.
I believe there is a very old thread about someone losing almost it's whole herd because they didn't quarantine first and that was with the same species. Now add to that two species that would never come across the same things in the wild and well you could have a disaster. The ones that pays for this is the tort.

 

[CanadianTestudo]

That makes sense, even though once you quarantined them I don't see an issue from the disease perspective (however, still many other reasons to seperate them)

 

[leigti]

That makes sense, even though once you quarantined them I don't see an issue from the disease perspective (however, still many other reasons to seperate them)

Winter still be an issue just because they may have bugs that don't bother them but the other tortoise cannot tolerate?

 

[CanadianTestudo]

I dunno, if they have been successfully quarantined and vet checked. Also if they are captive bred I don't know where they would come in contact with these pathogens seeing how they spend their entire life in the same country. I can see if you have a wild caught specimen from another country how it could have some sort of bacteria growing inside that native tortoises would not come in contact with, but I don't know about cb guys

 

[leigti]

I don't know either. But every organism has its own bacteria. So it may not matter if they haven't been in the wild. Where is a vet when you need one? For somebody that knows these things?

 

[nextep]

Apart from all the bacteria, different tortoises have different needs, so they have to be kept in different places so they have the conditions they need.

 

[johnsonnboswell]

Different species also have different body language & give different physical cues that can lead to aggression. Even species with the same diet & habitat requirements can't live together because of that. But these two have different needs.

Box turtles are omnivores. Leos aren't. Leos will grow much larger (and faster?) and require higher temps.

Wouldn't it be nice if they could live together?

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

They don't want to be together, anyway.
They prefer their own company and solitude.