Leopard Yard Enlargement Project

[Tom]

Be prepared to make all the adult males live alone. I can't even keep mine with groups of females, much less each other. I just introduce them for breeding. The males fight worse than two male sulcatas. Far worse.

The ones I brought you were also Limburg lines. I think all the true South African lines can be traced back to Randy. He started with 10 in 1990.

 

[Fredkas]

SA leopads are gangster

 

[dmmj]

looks very nice I can't wait to move in

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

Be prepared to make all the adult males live alone. I can't even keep mine with groups of females, much less each other. I just introduce them for breeding. The males fight worse than two male sulcatas. Far worse.

The ones I brought you were also Limburg lines. I think all the true South African lines can be traced back to Randy. He started with 10 in 1990.

@Tom , Jeff Price had a group wholly autonomous from Randy. Jeff's female was around 50 pounds. He bought his from Strictly Reptiles in 1990 or 91 (memory issue on my part). I do recall Richard Fife's talk at an NCHS meeting in the late 1980's and he showed images of his SA phenotype animals, all very large and producing in the pattern described by Jeff Price as the typical SA phenotype manner. Richard Bartlett has (now 1.1) with a male from John Visser (south African herpetologist). So Limburg is not the only one, but certainly has produced many for a more consistent duration.

BTW Jeff Price is well informed on these animals as well and sorted out their unique incubation needs separate from others based on finding in ground neonates wandering in his yard.

 

[Tom]

@Tom , Jeff Price had a group wholly autonomous from Randy. Jeff's female was around 50 pounds. He bought his from Strictly Reptiles in 1990 or 91 (memory issue on my part). I do recall Richard Fife's talk at an NCHS meeting in the late 1980's and he showed images of his SA phenotype animals, all very large and producing in the pattern described by Jeff Price as the typical SA phenotype manner. Richard Bartlett has (now 1.1) with a male from John Visser (south African herpetologist). So Limburg is not the only one, but certainly has produced many for a more consistent duration.

BTW Jeff Price is well informed on these animals as well and sorted out their unique incubation needs separate from others based on finding in ground neonates wandering in his yard.

At lest one of Richards came from me and my group. Sold him a surplus male a few years ago. I believe the female was originally from Randy's stock, by way of another seller, if I recall correctly.

I've never heard of Jeff Price, so can't comment at all there. Sounds like he may have gotten his at the same time and possibly from the same shipment as Randy. Its nice to know there might be more out there. So far, every single road I've found leads back to Randy and his original 10.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

At lest one of Richards came from me and my group. Sold him a surplus male a few years ago. I believe the female was originally from Randy's stock, by way of another seller, if I recall correctly.

What year? The individuals I saw in R. Fife's presentation are from the Norther California Herpetological Seminar the same year or 1 year +/- that the Vivarium Magazine first came out. This predates whatever Randy or Jeff had been doing. If not for Richard having Ivory sulcatas maybe he would have put more into this particular type of leopard?

I've never heard of Jeff Price, so can't comment at all there. Sounds like he may have gotten his at the same time and possibly from the same shipment as Randy. Its nice to know there might be more out there. So far, every single road I've found leads back to Randy and his original 10.

Do you know where Randy got his? Is Randy here and willing to speak up?

Jeff 's female produced several hundred offspring over many years. He's an easy to talk with person happy to share his knowledge about the animals he has had. Many of which did not conform to the narrowly defined traits often associated with the SA variant.

Sharing information on these sources and their offspring might serve the purpose of out-breeding those that come from Randy.

Look at the chart.

 

[Tom]

I'm not sure what to make of your chart, but I know all of the ones you've listed, except for Jeff's which I have no knowledge of, are Randy's stock.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

AWESOME.
I wish I had more space. And better neighbors.

 

[Yvonne G]

Whew! Project all finished!!! Will worked very hard this past week-end and now the tortoises have much more room. For now I have them separated male/female, but eventually the larger yard will be for the SA leopards. The two males have the south "pasture" or the old area, and the females now have access to the north pasture (except it's too cold today for them to spend the day wandering around in a jungle, so they're blocked out. The second picture shows one of the trails they made through the jungle yesterday, the darker, 's' shaped area running from the top to the bottom of the picture. Saturday evening all of them had made it back into their shed except for the female SA leopard. That's quite a feat considering I had to wheelbarrow them into the pasture as the gate wasn't made yet, then they spent the day in dense plants without being able to see a horizon. So how in the heck did they know to find the gate and the shed? GPS has nothing on my tortoises!!

 

[Slow and steady]

Your new corral looks great, and your animals are lucky to have you.
'Saturday evening all of them had made it back into their shed except for the female SA leopard."

Truly remarkable. Hopefully they keep it up and your female SA will catch on. I wish my leos had a fraction of your torts' homing abilities. I'm still trying to figure out if my guys are just plain dense, or if they're very, very clever. They're also probably trying to figure the same out for their owner.