Leopard breeding from the 'old days'

[cdmay]

Like I said in the post about the Colombian red-footed twins, these are scans of old slides that were taken in the early 1980's.
In this case my leopard tortoises. We had raised two juvenile females up to adult size and then had another female that was raised to about 12 inches by a friend that we incorporated into our collection. The two males that we used for breeding came from a guy in Virginia as there simply weren't that many big leopard tortoises around back then.
The female in these photos was around 14 inches by the time she began laying eggs. In her first year she produced over 70 eggs...

This is her nesting in my back yard...

Not much else to say about these guys but here are some of the hatchlings. We would sell them in lots of 10 for only $20.00 each!...

 

[Neal]

I suppose these tortoises are long gone from your collection?

Fantastic specimens...especially for raising them from babies. And they babies are quite good looking as well!

 

[DesertGrandma]

Carl she is a beautiful tortoise. She is smooth. I like to see how different the hatchlings look. Did you use the same male/female combo for all these?

 

[cdmay]

Carl she is a beautiful tortoise. She is smooth. I like to see how different the hatchlings look. Did you use the same male/female combo for all these?

Thanks Neal and Grandma...the photos show just the one female. There were two males from the guy in Roanoke, VA. Both males courted and bred the females so I suppose the hatchlings could show traits from both?
I found that when kept outdoors down here and allowed to graze on grass while being supplemented with other greens, leopard tortoises tend to grow quite normally.

 

[nicoleandrocky]

they are such beauties

 

[Eweezyfosheezy]

Thats one nice looking female and the babies are very unique looking.

 

[Jacob]

Awesome, they look great

 

[Tropical Torts]

This is such a great and encouraging post as I am currently laying down plans in my mind for my future breeding project: leopards! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Tom]

So am I understanding correctly that you got these as juveniles, and then raised them to adulthood? I'm assuming the juveniles were imports, given the time frame. What size were they when you got them?

Great photos Carl. Thanks for posting them for us.

 

[cdmay]

So am I understanding correctly that you got these as juveniles, and then raised them to adulthood? I'm assuming the juveniles were imports, given the time frame. What size were they when you got them?

The two females that we raised to adulthood were around 5 inches (straight carapace) when we got them from Louis Porras at The Shed in Miami. I don't remember the exact year but it was probably 1980 or 1981. Like most tortoises their growth 'snow balled' until they reached breeding size. What I mean by that is that the larger they grew, the more they could eat, the more they could eat, the faster they grew. Does that make sense? Anyway, the female in these photos was purchased as a small juvenile and raised to about 9 inches by an older man who lived in Delray Beach, Florida. My tortoise keeping buddy Ted Tuchak bought her from the old guy and raised her to her full adult size which took 2 or 3 more years, I think.
As my two girls were approaching breeding size and Ted's had reached it, we started looking for adult males. We found a guy in Virginia who had raised two males up from juvenile imports (they were pretty much ALL imports in those days) in his basement in Roanoke. They were very pale looking from being kept indoors and would be what we call 'blond' leopards now. One male was 10 inches and the other 12 inches but they both had fairly deep plastrons and very long tails. From the day they were kept at my house and outside in full sunlight, every bit of new growth those two males put on was jet black in contrast to the light colors they had when they arrived.
After a brief quarantine period they started breeding Ted's female which was kept at my house. The first breeding and egg laying for Ted's female was in late 1984. The larger of my two females was breeding size in 1986.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

70, WOW!

 

[Tom]

Wow. Those had to be some of the first privately bred captive bred babies. It wasn't until around 5 years after that that I saw my first CB babies here on the West Coast. I think its really neat to hear the stories from the past...

 

[cdmay]

Wow. Those had to be some of the first privately bred captive bred babies. It wasn't until around 5 years after that that I saw my first CB babies here on the West Coast. I think its really neat to hear the stories from the past...

Thanks Tom but there were at least a couple of accounts of captive leopard tortoise breedings recorded in the International Turtle and Tortoise Society's journal. It was published from around 1967 to about 1972. Also **** Goergen was breeding leopard tortoises back then too.

 

[marujita]

They are so beautiful. Thank you for sharing the pictures.