3 little platynota

Markw84

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My calipers only go up to 6”. But, I made what I have work for the #3.

6 7/8”
4 3/4”
1030g

If those numbers are accurate, that would say female for sure to me. The picture must be decieving as that ratio is pure female. Length/width = 1.447. I've never seen a male that is over 600g have a ratio under 1.55
 

mrnewberry

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If those numbers are accurate, that would say female for sure to me. The picture must be decieving as that ratio is pure female. Length/width = 1.447. I've never seen a male that is over 600g have a ratio under 1.55

Thanks for your assessment.
 

zovick

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I just noticed this thread so figured I would jump in and say that from the latest plastron photos, #1 and #2 are females. and #3 is tending toward being a male. Have you ever tried to observe whether #3 everts his penis when you soak him or even better hold him under a faucet and run lukewarm water on the plastron for a few minutes? When doing the latter, don't turn the tortoise all the way over as though he were on his back, just hold him vertically but slightly tilted backwards and let the warm water run on the lower half of the plastron and the tail area.

This technique has worked for me a good number of times over the years. Of course if you are really anxious to know, you could have that one sexed at UGA or even at a good reptile vet's office.

Regardless of sex, your tortoises look great. Are they all unrelated?
 

mrnewberry

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I just noticed this thread so figured I would jump in and say that from the latest plastron photos, #1 and #2 are females. and #3 is tending toward being a male. Have you ever tried to observe whether #3 everts his penis when you soak him or even better hold him under a faucet and run lukewarm water on the plastron for a few minutes? When doing the latter, don't turn the tortoise all the way over as though he were on his back, just hold him vertically but slightly tilted backwards and let the warm water run on the lower half of the plastron and the tail area.

This technique has worked for me a good number of times over the years. Of course if you are really anxious to know, you could have that one sexed at UGA or even at a good reptile vet's office.

Regardless of sex, your tortoises look great. Are they all unrelated?
They are unrelated and all three are from Ken Siffert

I hadn’t tried the running water trick so I gave it a go. No flashing. Although, there was some cloacal flexing that had me thinking for a second that it was about to either flash or deficate. It did neither. Current weight is 1,075g. Here are a couple of photos from tonight. One is a still from a video of running water down the plastron.

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G-stars

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I’m 99.9% sure that’s a female. What luck to get 3 out of 3 females from Ken. I got 15 out of 15 males from him, 10 of those were incubated for female. They all presented themselves to me as males between 300-700g.
 

mrnewberry

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I’m 99.9% sure that’s a female. What luck to get 3 out of 3 females from Ken. I got 15 out of 15 males from him, 10 of those were incubated for female. They all presented themselves to me as males between 300-700g.

That would be rough. I did end up lucky. I had heard about folks getting maybe 50% females on those incubated to be females. So, my thinking was shoot for all females and be happy if I end up with at least a female. Now it seems that I will be needing some males. The nice part of that is that people have extra males. Not so much the other way around.
 

zovick

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Thanks for all the pix and for trying my suggestion to see what would happen.

I could be wrong, but when looking at the divergence of the anal scutes and the tail morphology of tortoise #3 in comparison to animals #1 and #2, I still think this one may possibly one day prove to be a male. I would suggest continuing to try running the warm water over the plastron off and on through this summer and see what happens. I didn't think to mention this yesterday, but I normally did that after first soaking the animal for about 20-30 minutes first.

Please keep us posted on your findings.
 

mrnewberry

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Thanks for all the pix and for trying my suggestion to see what would happen.

Looking at the divergence of the anal scutes and the tail morphology of tortoise #3 in comparison to animals #1 and #2, I could be wrong, but I still think this one may possibly one day prove to be a male. I would suggest continuing to try running the warm water over the plastron off and on through this summer and see what happens. I didn't think to mention this yesterday, but I normally did that after first soaking the animal for about 20-30 minutes first.

Please keep us posted on your findings.
Thanks for the tips. I’ll give soaking before trying the running water a try.
 

mrnewberry

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Awesome! Great video and you added two beautiful males.

They are nice. The banding is wide. Also, I thought my girls had yellow skin. But, one of the males just has a glowing yellow skin. Almost like it is a different color. Kind of like the headlights with a little blue tint seem whiter.
 

KarenSoCal

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I just re-found this thread… and how timely, I just got a Burmese Star… 2 years old… 400 gms… and has the prettiest yellow skin. Still too small for gender ID… but I call him a boy.

You asked about unusual names. My boy is named Sulafat (soo lah fit… accent is on lah). The word is a derivative of the Arabic word for "tortoise". Sulafat is the name of a star, visible every night here in SoCal. It's in the constellation Lyra (the Lyre) which also includes Vega, the 3rd brightest star in our night sky.

There is of course a story in mythology. The very brief version: Mercury found the body of a tortoise on the beach of the Nile, and after it decayed, there was only a shell with sinews stretched across it. He plucked them and discovered a musical note was made. He made a 3 string lyre, and gave it to Orpheus, who played it and enchanted the beasts, birds, and rocks. After Orpheus was killed, the lyre was put into the sky by Jupiter, thereby bringing music to the skies.

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g4mobile

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I just re-found this thread… and how timely, I just got a Burmese Star… 2 years old… 400 gms… and has the prettiest yellow skin. Still too small for gender ID… but I call him a boy.

You asked about unusual names. My boy is named Sulafat (soo lah fit… accent is on lah). The word is a derivative of the Arabic word for "tortoise". Sulafat is the name of a star, visible every night here in SoCal. It's in the constellation Lyra (the Lyre) which also includes Vega, the 3rd brightest star in our night sky.

There is of course a story in mythology. The very brief version: Mercury found the body of a tortoise on the beach of the Nile, and after it decayed, there was only a shell with sinews stretched across it. He plucked them and discovered a musical note was made. He made a 3 string lyre, and gave it to Orpheus, who played it and enchanted the beasts, birds, and rocks. After Orpheus was killed, the lyre was put into the sky by Jupiter, thereby bringing music to the skies.

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Pretty tortoise Karen! Nice yellow banding as well.
 

mrnewberry

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I just re-found this thread… and how timely, I just got a Burmese Star… 2 years old… 400 gms… and has the prettiest yellow skin. Still too small for gender ID… but I call him a boy.

You asked about unusual names. My boy is named Sulafat (soo lah fit… accent is on lah). The word is a derivative of the Arabic word for "tortoise". Sulafat is the name of a star, visible every night here in SoCal. It's in the constellation Lyra (the Lyre) which also includes Vega, the 3rd brightest star in our night sky.

There is of course a story in mythology. The very brief version: Mercury found the body of a tortoise on the beach of the Nile, and after it decayed, there was only a shell with sinews stretched across it. He plucked them and discovered a musical note was made. He made a 3 string lyre, and gave it to Orpheus, who played it and enchanted the beasts, birds, and rocks. After Orpheus was killed, the lyre was put into the sky by Jupiter, thereby bringing music to the skies.

View attachment 302551View attachment 302552
Cool name! And, even cooler tortoise.
 

mrnewberry

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Looks like at least one of these girls will be large enough to put with the males this spring. (I think another will be ready sometime this spring or summer.)
 

Markw84

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View attachment 318012
View attachment 318013
Looks like at least one of these girls will be large enough to put with the males this spring. (I think another will be ready sometime this spring or summer.)
Looking great, Allen.

3000g is a good weight and certainly large enough to start laying. They can lay at 2500g but I like to wait until 3000g when I can. Be sure to up the calcium availability for egg laying as the calcium need really increases dramatically. A clutch of eggs will be 10% or so of their body weight, and they will lay 3-4 clutches a season (in about 3 months) with proper food availability.
 
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