View attachment 608Here are my newly arrived Black Mountain Tortoises.
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New Kids on The Block
- Thread starter Itort
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They look great 
Danny
Danny
Itort said:
My Gosh!!, ITORT: One or two wasn't good enough for you? They are beautiful little babies. Did you ask Vic why he was feeding the frozen mixed veggies? I believe that the Manouria emys emys is also known as the Burmese brown mountain tortoise, and the Manouria emys phayerii is the Burmese black forest tortoise. You bought the Mee, didn't you? They are wonderful tortoises and get to be very social in their interaction with their keeper. I've been trying to hatch Manouria eggs for the past 10 years, with no success. Do you know what sex your little guys are?
Yvonne
They are MEPs. They are way two young to sex and I have had one since last Sep. and it has turned into quite the character (he's watching me type right now and no he's not getting anymore food today). I have about a two acre woodlot with their name on it for the future. Yvonne, raising Manouria most be a challendge in S. Cal with the heat and drieness. I'm going to have set up a sprinkler system for them in Iowa as it is. As I've said before, tortoise keeping for the crazy.
It will be fun watching them grow and change from the pictures your sure to keep adding. So this makes seven you have now, right?
Yes, it's seven. I find them fascinateing with the nest building and guarding. So unlike other tortoises. Primitive physically but advanced behaviorily. And large tortioses that don't dig is a plus.
wow, congrats on your new additions!
Itort said:
I know they are too young to sex, but Vic Morgan has been experimenting with incubation temperatures and was wondering if he incubated your babies for male or female.
I have the Manouria pens over-planted so that it is similar to a rain forest. I also have a misting system overhead in their gazebo. They only have filtered sunlight. The plants require a lot of watering to keep them alive and thriving, which is a big help to keeping the torts alive and thriving! I have a young male Mee and an adult female, and an almost full grown male Mep with a full grown female (65lbs), an almost grown female (50lbs) and a young female that I bought from Vic Morgan about 12 years ago. A little over 10 years ago my male Mep bred my female Mee. I didn't realize he was old enough and thought he was just practicing!! But the result was 19 intergrade Mee/Mep babies. My tortoise partner, who lives in Penn., sold his half of the babies except for 4 of them, which I still have here. Some of them look Mee and some of them look Mep. But they are all the same size. They have a bad...I mean BA-a-a-ad.. beak problem, with the lower jaw jutting way out. I have raised many different kinds of tortoises from hatchlings and my tortoise-keeping has never shown this kind of problem before so I'm at a loss to say if their beak problem is my fault or genetic. Needless to say, once I separated the two groups I've not had any viable eggs.
Yvonne
That beak problem is perplexing. I've seen pictures of apparent intergrades from Asia and that doesn"t appear there.[email protected] said:
The substrat is by weight 1/2 hardwood mulch and 1/2 sphagum moss. I find it holds the moisture and humidity well. What you don't see in the picture is the hide area is 100% moss. This my basic formula for forest torts.Marley said:
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They are beautiful!! Congrats!! I was going to get an adult male a while back from a guy I knew, but decided AZ was not a good place for him, so now he lives in the mountains in Colorado I believe. Congrats again, can't wait to see all the cute pictures as they grow.
Congrats Itort on your new shelled babies. They are beauties.
I just talked with Vic and the MEPs he thinks are 2 males and 4 females. Time will tell. The frozen mixed veggies are just a treat. They starting to watch me as the food good (they act like bottomless pits in morn and evening).[email protected] said:
Here's what your babies are going to look like in a few years. The tort on the left is a 65lb wc female Mep of unknown age and the one on the right is a cb male Mep appx. 15 years old and 50lbs.
Yvonne
Yvonne
I'm looking forward to this. They already have their own room reserved in the basement and am constructing their future summer home in the woodlot. I've always wanted big torts and they are a better fit for me than a sulcatta.
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