Just supposing ... enclosure size???

[ditzyangeluk]

As some may, I am a newbie and very much enjoying my fabulous hermann, Sparky. In fact, so much so, that I am a tad obsessed (really?! Ha!) and have been considering getting another - from the same breeder, same 'batch' Sparky came from

So, just supposing I DID go this route (I know about future possibilities of separating etc) but, just supposing ...

1) What would be the minimum sized indoor enclosure (tortoise table) for two juvenile Hermanns (approx 3" at present)
2) What would be the minimum sized indoor enclosure (tortoise table) for two ADULT Hermanns (if they were able to be housed together)
3) At what age, approx, would they be full adult sized, which could be up to 10" possibly?

Any help, advice or 'don't do it' persuasion welcome!!



PS Sparky really bullies that poor little cactus!

 

[Tom]

I would never attempt to keep them in a pair. If you only want two, then house them separately. The minimum size I'd recommend is 4x8' for each adult. Bigger would be better. If you have room outdoors for a very large enclosure and want more than one, get at least two females to one male. I prefer 3 or 4 females to each male.

 

[Abdulla6169]

I would never attempt to keep them in a pair. If you only want two, then house them separately. The minimum size I'd recommend is 4x8' for each adult. Bigger would be better. If you have room outdoors for a very large enclosure and want more than one, get at least two females to one male. I prefer 3 or 4 females to each male.

You beat me by a minute, I wasn't that sure about the cage size though

 

[tglazie]

Tom is right. Don't keep them as a pair, even as hatchlings or juveniles. Such is a critical time for their development, and one will invariably bully the other, ultimately growing faster and consuming more of the food. Then, when the one nears sexual maturity faster than the other, that's when the violence will start. This is not a good situation. Keep them separate, four by eight like Tom said, preferably more. I keep mine a typical minimum eight by twenty.

T.G.

 

[Jabuticaba]

I adopted a female and male Hermann's that, based on the little history we had on them, had been house together for at least 6 yrs. The male had reached sexual maturity way before the female, so he harassed her incessantly. I had to separate them because she was getting too stressed and spent the majority of her time hiding in her shell, when she wasn't trying to run away from the male. The kind folks I'm this forum suggested that I put in lots if hideouts and plants, but that did not deter the male at all.

I separated them and they're both much happier and healthier now. They each have a 4'x4' habitat.


May, Aussies, & THBs
IG: @AUSSOMEAUSSIES

 

[ditzyangeluk]

I know I may have to separate them in the future but figure I have at least a good couple of years before worrying about that!

 

[THBfriend]

Tom is right. Don't keep them as a pair, even as hatchlings or juveniles. Such is a critical time for their development, and one will invariably bully the other, ultimately growing faster and consuming more of the food.

I totally disagree. Hatchlings and juveniles can be kept in pairs and larger groups without problem - provided that the enclosure is good and big enough. Yes, it is a critical time for their development, that's why they should have some contact with fellow members of their species, otherwise you'll end up with adult tortoises that hump rocks, shoes, etc. because they don't know the difference between those and an actual mate.

Once they reach sexual maturity, things become a lot more difficult, of course. Males will fight with other males (I've read some stories about "docile" males that get along without fighting, but that's not the norm). Males will harrass females. Females usually get along with other females, but they too can fight over dominance and territory. So, if you want to keep multiple adult tortoises, you need a lot of space in your enclosure and three or more females per male. Or you need at least be able to separate them in different parts of the enclosure.

Anyway, while Hermann's tortoises certainly aren't herd animals, they definitely aren't eternal loners either. Particularly not juveniles.

 

[tglazie]

Tortoises kept alone hump rocks and shoes? I mean, do you have any evidence to support this causal relationship? Can you say definitively that tortoises kept in isolation become this way, because I think you will have your work cut out for you in proving this assertion. Tortoises aren't social creatures, and it is an undeniable fact that they spend the vast majority of their lives in solitude, only meeting to engage in combat and breeding.

In my experience, and Tom will back me up on this, tortoises do best when kept in solitude. I've been keeping torts for over twenty years, and when I was younger, I used to keep the various species I've kept over the years together, and invariably, some animals would be dominant with the lion's share of the food and space, and other animals would be submissive, spending most of their time in hiding, afraid to take to the field and graze. Separation ultimately proved the better arrangement, given that now all of my animals have access to their own fields for grazing, without having to constantly look over their shoulder.

Also, how do you define "a lot" of space? Because when I kept my torts together in a big group, they had the run of half the yard (some sixty by eighty feet), and the girls were always in hiding. And this happened regardless of sight barriers or how ever many hides I chose to put about the place. Now, all of my guys are isolated to eight by twenty or six by twenty paddocks, and everyone is doing much better. Additionally, I don't have to worry about combat injuries and incurring unnecessary vet bills.

I think this is also dependent upon the tortoise. Some tortoises can never be kept with others simply because they're too violent. My Greek tortoise Graecus is the most barbarous, abusive tortoise I've ever seen. He will viciously attack anything resembling a tortoise. And I mean, viciously. I've always kept him alone, because he's such a jerk. Whenever Lady Gino, the female marginated in the paddock next to his, sits against the wall they have in common, he invariably paces back and forth along the wall, given that I'm sure he can smell her on the other side of it. He'll even resort to ramming the cinderblock wall that separates them.

Ultimately, I think whether or not one wishes to keep the animals separate or together also depends on one's time constraints. I run a business, and as a result, the only time I have to spend with my torts is for an hour in the morning and another hour just before sunset when I return home. I feed and water them in the morning, then return home to ensure that everyone is alright before dark. Were a vicious fight to break out during the day, I wouldn't be there to address it, so keeping them in solitude works best for me.

T.G.

 

[tglazie]

Oh yes, you must forgive me, but I really can't get over this whole notion that tortoises that aren't socialized hump shoes idea you put out there. I mean, my tortoise Graecus does this sort of thing all the time (attacks empty red eared slider shells, rocks, shoes, anything that looks like a tortoise, then resumes to hump it), and he's a wild caught Testudo ibera that I've had for over twenty years. Are you suggesting that his time spent as a juvenile, in a wild state, resulted in his isolation, which therefore resulted in this aberrant behavior? However, my friend Justin owns a wild caught Testudo ibera that he acquired some fifteen years ago, and he does not engage in this behavior at all. I can't count the number of times I've heard forum members with adopted wild caught and captive bred ibera that engage in this behavior, and I'm sure plenty have wild caught and captive bred ibera that don't. I mean, sorry, but I'm extremely skeptical concerning this theory of yours. It just sounds completely ridiculous, and I don't even know how one would go about proving this or even arriving at this conclusion. Also, what is actually wrong with a tortoise who likes to hump rocks or shoes or any inanimate object? I mean, I'd rather they abuse an inanimate object than a fellow tortoise, really.

T.G.

 

[ditzyangeluk]

Sorry, didn't mean to cause a debate!

Tips noted, thank you!

 

[THBfriend]

tglazie, of course I don't have any hard evidence, just my personal experience and what I learned from other breeders. As for tortoises spending the vast majority of their lives in solitude: just think of island tortortoises, e.g. Galapagos, or these Angulate ones. But alright, we're talking about Hermann's tortoises here. Well, some of them happen to live on islands as well, or in relatively confined regions like narrow coast lines. They are bound to meet other tortoises. How often do those encounters happen? I don't know, but it is probably more often than you think (or at least was more often than you think, before we started destroying their habitats and decreasing their numbers). Here's an interesting article that says these tortoises "live side by side in an open society that shares a common habitat in which individual home ranges may overlap significantly."
That doesn't sound like isolation to me at all. It's not the same as a close group either, of course.

Do you have any evidence to support your claim that tortoises do best in solitude? It doesn't matter if Tom backs you up or not, there are enough other people who've been keeping tortoises for twenty years and longer and who'd agree with me that tortoises absolutely should have contact with fellow members of their species (how frequently is up for debate, of course).

I've been keeping juvenile Eastern Hermann's tortoises together with an age difference of up to 4 years (5 year-olds and 1 year-olds). Never once did I observe any bullying or dominating among them. They certainly don't appear to be afraid of each other or hog any food. Some people even say that a bit of food envy among tortoises is good, as it gets them motivated to eat. Although I don't think eating is a problem at all, with our food captive tortoises tend to grow much faster than their wild cousins anyway, whether kept in solitude or in a group.

I'm sorry to hear that you had trouble with your group. It sounds like you did give them plenty of space, though you didn't mention how many tortoises were in the group and what the sex ratio was.

I agree that it also depends on the individuum. Some tortoises are just more aggressive than others, and maybe some are also more interested in rocks and shoes as well. Anyway, I've been told that those tortoises that grew up in isolation are usually more difficult to integrate into a group later in their lives, than tortoises who grew up in a group to begin with.
I keep my two adult tortoises separated most of the time, too. Mainly to give the female a break. The male isn't particularly agressive, though he does try to mate with her quite often. I did introduce him to a couple of shoes and balls, but he only seems to care about the real deal. I would like to get two more females, so that his attention gets diverted between them, but the enclosure isn't big enough for that number of tortoises.

And that's the key point I think we can all agree on: if you don't have enough space, especially if you do not have an outdoor enclosure at all, don't get more tortoises. But if you do have enough space, and the possibility to separate tortoises in different areas or enclosures, then a small group of them is better (in my opinion) and definitely more interesting.
In ditzyangeluk's case, i.e. getting two young tortoises from the same breeder: beside the space requirement, also think about gender, which is probably undetermined at that age. At best you'll get two females who don't care about each other. At worst you'll get two males who'll start fighting each other once they mature, or a brother and sister who have to be separated permanently once they mature.

 

[tglazie]

I think we have more in common as far as our beliefs are concerned than I may have initially thought. My group consisted of three females and one male, Testudo marginata. I've since acquired one more male, who is kept in solitude, and two young females from Chris, who are also kept in solitude. The oldest, largest male, Gino, is a serial harassment specialist, and a bully through and through. Don't get me wrong. It is true, as you said, that tortoises vary according to their aggressive tendencies, across species and from individual to individual. My uncle keeps a colony of redfoots, four males and nine females, and they seem to get along great. He has to manage them, though, to ensure that they don't bully one another out of food. On the other hand, my good friend Guy has a pair of seventy pound female sulcatas that get along great, but one year he introduced an eighty pound male into the group. Everything seemed fine at first, but then, one hot June day, he went into his backyard to find the male flipped on his back, dead in the heat. One or both of those girls decided they didn't like him and killed him. And this year, both of those females started fighting, out of the blue, viciously ramming one another in an attempt to knock the other over. He now keeps them separately.

But yes, I have evidence to support that tortoises do best in solitude. All of my females, now that they live in solitude, have gained weight proportional to their size. They spend much more time grazing, and when I go out in the morning to greet them, they come out to greet me, unlike before, when Gino was the only one who would come out to greet me. They are more inquisitive about their environment, and they spend much less time in hiding than they did when I kept them with the male and each other. All of these are measurable benefits to a change up in my care regimen from five years ago, and though I can't draw a causal relationship concerning this improvement in all of my females with one hundred percent certainty, I am fairly confident in the efficacy of the method.

What I still don't understand, though, is the notion that a tortoise is somehow worse off living alone, that aberrant behavior develops from solitary confinement in the various chelonia. This, you must admit, is more markedly difficult to measure than my demonstration that solitude and separation of my girls from Gino the Terrible did them a world of good. I mean, certainly, with humans and other social creatures, this is the case, that socialization is actually necessary for the fulfillment of life's potential. But tortoise mothers don't nurture and socialize their young, and I would imagine that even antisocial, dastardly males mate in the wild (I'd figure the odds are on Graecus' side in that he probably reproduced in the wild, though the odds are certainly stacked against the survival of his offspring, given the increasingly brutal nature of the world in which these animals are hatched). All would seem to suggest that relative solitude is the rule for tortoises, in addition to the fact that home ranges for wild tortoises are large and that those in the wild can escape their bullies over large tracts of land, an equivalent of which most folks simply don't own. I mean, I'm lucky to live in a big house on a big piece of property in the San Antonio suburbs, but even with most of my backyard devoted to tortoise space, I don't feel confident that I could keep my animals in a communal setting with the limited space I have. Also, I'd like to point out that bigger is better, yes, but there comes a point that too big is actually inconvenient. If I reduced my collection to my prodigal son Graecus and gave him the run of the yard with a wide range of hiding spaces and a 2000 square foot field of weeds to graze, it would take me ten or more minutes to find the guy, unless he was simply running out in the open, and that would be even worse in the dark.

Ultimately, though, I think we're on the same page. We both acknowledge that separation is, often, necessary. We simply disagree on the frequency of said separation. But I'm sure our circumstances differ significantly as well, given the differences in our experience concerning group dynamics. Suffice it to say that my regimen works for my needs, and my tortoises are happy and healthy, which is the important thing. I mean, Graecus was an adult when I got him, and I've had him for over twenty years, and though he's gotten more melanistic with age, he's still the same ravenous, rambunctious, wild eyed beast he was after that first winter when I nursed him back from his previous keeper's numerous husbandry mistakes. He is one of the most powerful little tortoises I have ever seen; I mean, the muscles on this guy. I swear, during the spring, the guy must run a mile in that little paddock of his, grazing, checking the perimeter for intruders. I don't need another tortoise in the enclosure with him to make his activities interesting, that's for sure. He is, by far, the most entertaining little beast I've ever encountered.

T.G.