General Questions?

[Skymall007]

Out of curiosity, when you guys breed your torts, do you sell them afterwards? Or is the breeding often a one time thing because you want the offspring? If you do sell, how do you go about doing it? I really want to breed my Russian, but I worry that

1. I will get super attached to the babies
2. If I try to sell them and get past prob. 1, I would be so picky about where they go I don't know if I could find homes. (I suppose I would need to line that up ahead of time).

If you keep one of the offspring, how does the parent feel about being housed in a large enclosure with them? This may sound silly, but they don't eventually breed with offspring right? I know in the wild they leave the babies and so that's not a problem, but I don't know about captivity.

Lastly, do you typically buy the partner(s)? Or do you borrow the other torts? I ask because I have found that female Russians are very expensive.


For the record, if I breed mine it probably won't be for a long time because I have so much research to do. But these are questions I can't find the answers to.

Thank you everyone =) Sorry for such a long post

 

[Floof]

Generally, people breed their tortoises to sell. There's a couple ways to go about selling them, and you'll get better advice on this from people who've actually sold tortoises, but the main outlet is usually the internet--whether it's Craigslist or a reptile classifieds like TFO's For Sale forum or Fauna Classifieds--or wholesaling to a pet store or distributor.

It's not a good idea to keep the hatchlings in with the adults. The large adults can easily injure a small tortoise, whether on accident (stepping on them) or even on purpose (dominance behavior). The safest way to go, by far, is to avoid the risk all together and have separate housing for the hatchlings.

If you keep any of the offspring and eventually decide to house them with the parents, they can and often will breed. A lot of animals don't really discriminate between relatives and non-relatives when it comes to finding a mate. This is especially true for reptiles like tortoises, who literally have nothing to do with their offspring once the eggs are laid and the nest buried, so they don't even really have a way to tell who is or is not related to them.

Breeding loans (borrowing someone else's tortoise) are an option, but I'm not sure how successful they are. Breeding loans are a very successful and common practice with things like snakes and lizards whose breeding habits are pretty straight forward and predictable, but, from all that I've read/seen, tortoises, especially Russians, seem to be more particular and unpredictable regarding where/when/if they will breed or whether the females will even take. Maybe that will change as we learn more about the breeding process and preferences of Russians, but, until then, your better bet would probably be to get your own female(s).

It may still be worth trying the breeding loan, see what kind of success you can have, though.

Anyway, that's my $.02 on the matter. I hope you find it helpful!

 

[tortadise]

depends on the species. I have alot of really rare species that i do not sell. And it is hard letting the wee ones go. Especially for great breeders like alot of us ont he forum here, that put in the needed time to get them growing smooth and very well started. But when you keep the clutches it gets hard to house them all if your not prepared to. Especially sulcatas. Just be very picky and make sure that they are going to a great home so others can share the same aww inspiring that you once did when you first purchased your tort. Its a big relief knowing they will be taken care of and grow with other families and share the similar love for an exotic animal like we all do.

 

[Skymall007]

Thank you both so very much! =)

 

[tortadise]

No problem.