Hatchlings one year on - and a basket of Angulates

JeannineD

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Mar 15, 2012
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Garden Route, South Africa
I wanted to find the two hatchlings from last year to photograph their growth. Looked for about 5 minutes and found six, including one of the babies. A minute later I found the other baby. Impossible to keep them in one place for a photo so I had to resort to putting them in a basket for a few minutes. Within a minute they were climbing up the side and furious. Anyway I got a pic of the babies, we call them Winston and Otis, interesting to see how much bigger Otis is.




torts 002.JPG torts 022.JPG
 

Sterant

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Albany, NY
Jeannine - is the colony of angulates you watch confined to your garden or do they come and go as they please?
 

JeannineD

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5 Year Member
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Mar 15, 2012
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Location (City and/or State)
Garden Route, South Africa
Jeannine - is the colony of angulates you watch confined to your garden or do they come and go as they please?
Hi there - they are free to come and go but I find the small ones do not wander out of the garden. They move between a few places within the garden and most have a favourite section where they spend most of their time. They all return to the same place to sleep at night, each has their own bush, or wall, or hole that they like. The big tortoises move much further afield and can be gone for days of even a few weeks at a time. They all come back though, at least the ones we recognise.
 

JeannineD

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5 Year Member
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Garden Route, South Africa
Thanks much for sharing the images. It is special to see your success no matter how easy you may find it. Thanks.
Good to hear from you again, Will. I hope it stays this way, I will do what it take to ensure it does. When we moved to this area about 15 years ago there were a lot of empty plots and the tortoises had a very wide territory. Development has happened and their world has shrunk so I feel as if I am creating a sanctuary for them. Luckily most of the houses are holiday homes with informal gardens and unoccupied for most to the year, so they have free reign and lots of the weeds that they like.
 

Sterant

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Location (City and/or State)
Albany, NY
Hi there - they are free to come and go but I find the small ones do not wander out of the garden. They move between a few places within the garden and most have a favourite section where they spend most of their time. They all return to the same place to sleep at night, each has their own bush, or wall, or hole that they like. The big tortoises move much further afield and can be gone for days of even a few weeks at a time. They all come back though, at least the ones we recognise.
So for the babies, how big is the area of your garden that they stay within? I don’t have a good idea of how large your gardens are. Just thinking about my own outdoor enclosures and their size.
 
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