My SA Leopard
- Thread starter Pickle407
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2012
- Messages
- 3,330
What a beauty! Young male?
Yea that’s my boy. He’s around 12 inches. I can’t wait until he gets bigger.
Did you raise him? Shell looks pretty darn good.
I did raise him from a hatchling I got from Ben Seigal many years ago. Fortunately I live in central Florida and he spends the majority of the year outside. I believe it was mostly luck because I’ve just recently joined the thread and read how you keep your babies. I also have a smaller what I believe to be female from ATC with slight pyramiding but she has been growing good since moving her outside fulltime as well.
Do you house them separately? My males were all very rambunctious at a young age. I couldn't keep them with the females after about 18 months old. They hit 8-9 inches and they became very aggressive with each other and the females.
The males of this type of tortoise grow much faster than the females initially. At about 4 years old, the males slow down and the females have a growth spurt and catch the males. When a bunch of babies is started correctly and then raised all under the same conditions, I am convinced that this is a good way to predict the sexes early. I picked the fastest growing, largest, most active and interesting ones out of my initial group and 11 out of 12 were male. Of course there will be exceptions, but I think I can accurately guess the sexes by 3-4 months old.
I certainly cannot guarantee this. There can always be a slow growing male, or a fast growing female, but it has been fairly consistent for me.
