I thought there was no way 2 males could be in the same enclosure

[TheTortoiseWhisperer]

I met a gentleman yesterday who swears his two adult male sulcatas get along just fine in the same enclosure with one female and the enclosure is only 1/4 of an acre......First of all I thought that was impossible since sulcatas males are territorial plus to have just one female for both of them seems to be absolutely cruel but he claims there is no aggression/bullying going on.....Could he be telling the truth or is this in fact a lie?

 

[Yvonne G]

Each individual tortoise is different. Let's just say that the man has been lucky.

 

[Tom]

Oh good heavens. There is no way to say what will happen 100% of the time. The VAST majority of the time two males are not going to get along, especially if they are mature. But there are lots of exceptions. Sometimes you can house many males together in large groups of tortoises in a large pen.

Additionally, sometimes people just perceive things differently. He might look out at what's going on in his tortoise pen and think to himself, "Oh look how cute, the males are following the female around again. They must love her." While I might look out there and go, "Whoa dude. You've got a ticking time bomb there. Better separate them before someone get hurt or killed." Sulcatas are surprisingly tough when they get older and can endure a whole lot of hardship for a long time. For every situation like this I can show you 10 where battle ensued.

Also, many times I have seen a tame green iguana, a docile savannah monitor, or male tortoises living together and seemingly getting along, and when you look a little closer you find out that condition are not right, temps are too low, diet is all wrong, or whatever, and while these animals are technically alive and surviving, they are NOT thriving and behaving "normally" for their species, age and sex.

Finally: If you sit down six people at a table and play russian roulette. 5 people are going to walk away totally unharmed...

Don't have any idea which scenario might best describe the man you talked to, but in general, what he's doing is going to lead to problems. I have seen many more tortoises injured or killed this way than I have seen live together peacefully.

 

[TheTortoiseWhisperer]

As always, I post here and people like you guys make me feel enlightened because I guess when I first started bonding with tortoises I was taught that male sulcatas specifically should never be enclosed together especially if there's only one female, so I personally would never do it but then comes someone like the man I spoke to yesterday that make me wonder if maybe I got my original information by a tort lover that seem to be over the top, almost obsessive and way over protective who can sometimes seem to make up "rules" as they seem fit so THANK YOU both for the input.....I'm glad to know that I was well informed and that this guy sadly has a catastrophe just waiting to happen on his hands, unfortunately surmising from his almost sarcastic attitude, there's no hope of changing his mind, he's definitely one of the ones who will have to learn from his mistakes. :0(

 

[Jacqui]

Or he may indeed be one of the rare ones, who has a reverse trio which are getting proper care and which actually the trio is working peacefully.

 

[wellington]

Or he may indeed be one of the rare ones, who has a reverse trio which are getting proper care and which actually the trio is working peacefully.

Lets hope so, as it will be a tort paying for the misinformed, not the misinformed themselves

 

[yagyujubei]

A quarter acre is pretty big, about 11,000 sq ft. With a lot of tall weeds, they're not in each others line of sight very often.