Keeping various Testudo species together

[Anti]

My mother has an outdoor enclosure in which she has 3 Testudo kleinmanni and 1 Testudo graeca, they have been kept together for years with no problems.

Are there any risks? sickness or hybridisation?

Would it be wise to make a fence to divide them?

Getting other Testudo species (eg. hermanni) with them would be a very bad idea?


Thanks

 

[Yvonne G]

My only concern would be the size difference. It might be ok because the enclosure is large enough (is this so???), but I would still worry about the bigger tortoise harming the smaller species. And NO, a very big NO to adding another species to the group. It's fine to have lots and lots of different tortoises, if you can care for them all properly, but it's best to have each species in it's own habitat/yard.

 

[Anti]

So if I understood correctly, it wouldn't harm to add more T kleinmanni or T graeca but NO to other species. Right?

 

[Yvonne G]

You can add more kleinmanni after a quarantine period to the kleinmanni enclosure, and you can add more graeca to the graeca enclosure after a quarantine period, but I wouldn't mix species - any species.

 

[Anti]

understood, time to get handy with some fence then, thanks for the tips

 

[dovelett15]

Yvonne states it well. And yes it is a possibility for the Mediterrean species to interbreed. I have a friend that had the two species separated and her Greek male got into the Egyptian enclosure resulting in fertile eggs.