Need advice, Tortoises are mating.

[Supertack]

Hey there, I've had two herman tortoises for a year now. I have a nice little table and I love the things.
Recently they've started mating. I googled if they were old enough (they're only about 2 years) but it turns out size determines when their ready.
They've been at it a lot recently and I'm worried that i cant look after egg if they have them. I dont want her to have eggs and for them to perish because I cant look after them. Should I seek an incubator or should I contact a breeder to take her and her eggs when she's close.
Any advice would be appreciated
Supertack x

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Supertack:

Welcome to the forum!!

May we know your name and where you are?

If you're not interested in raising babies from this pair of tortoises, you can always separate them.

One thing to consider is that the mating you might be seeing is actually acts of aggression, and not breeding. If you post pictures of the plastrons of each tortoise, we'll tell you if you have a true pair.

 

[Laura]

what Yvonne said..
Post pics.. determine if its breeding or aggression/dominance/ bullying..

 

[GBtortoises]

I agree with Yvonne G. & Laura. They could be big enough to successfully breed at two years old but that would mean that the female would have to be around 5"+ and the male 4-4.5" at least. My first question is: "Are you positive that you have a male and female?

 

[Fernando]

If it ends up being that you have a mating pair. You might look into a local pet store (one that you trust) and ask if they would be willing to incubate the eggs for you.

I've ran into the same situation recently. One pet shop owner offered to take incubate the eggs for half of them once hatched.

 

[zesty_17]

Sometimes you can find a local reptile group, many reptile ppl-esp lifers, have incubators and may be open to helping you out. You can get a pretty good one for less than $100 if you really want to try hatching them, if you do go this route, i suggest drawing up an agreement for who gets what when/if they hatch. typically, the owner of the female(or both in your case) gets the first one, then every other one...or since you own both m/f you can decide whatever ratio you want. but "in writing" is a good way to go, and if you use a local reptile person-rather than a pet shop owner-your chances of getting someone who truly wants to help you-versus someone just wanting to sell your babies, in my opinion is higher. Good luck.

 

[Supertack]

My Names Jake and I'm form Coventry
Here are some photos, I hope they help.
This is both of them at meal time:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/21/overviewjx.jpg/
I the one on the left is ying, the one I'm assuming is the male and the one on the right is yang who I think is female.
Here's a close up of ying:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/834/ying.jpg/
And one of yang:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/834/yangc.jpg/
Next time they do it I'll take pictures/videos to put here to determine if they are actually doing it.
Jake
x

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Welcome.

 

[coreyc]

My Names Jake and I'm form Coventry
Here are some photos, I hope they help.
This is both of them at meal time:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/21/overviewjx.jpg/
I the one on the left is ying, the one I'm assuming is the male and the one on the right is yang who I think is female.
Here's a close up of ying:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/834/ying.jpg/
And one of yang:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/834/yangc.jpg/
Next time they do it I'll take pictures/videos to put here to determine if they are actually doing it.
Jake
x

Can you take some pic's of their plastron ( belly) ?