New Male Russian Tortoise Bad Boy! Need Advise.

[grogansilver]

Hi every one! Well just got in a trade yesterday a 6 inch male and 6 inch female Russian tortoise pair! "great deal" except one problem I already had a "pair" of Russians! Which my male is only 4 inches and my female is 5 inches the problem here is the new male is aggressive towards my 4 inch male trying to bite the poor little guy up and also is going after the 6 inch female the same way, so he is the "Bad boy" of the group what can I do? I thought and have seen other people with large groups of Russians tortoises kept together and that was with multiple males together in their enclosures and everything is fine! Do I just ignore this problem? And or just let nature run its course or does he have to go! Here is a picture of their enclosure its more then enough room not to have to have your own territory and start fights.

 

[GBtortoises]

That's very normal behavior for male Russian tortoises. By letting "nature run it's course" in a more confined area you could potentially be setting the more submissive male up for very serious physical injury. There are usually only two solutions for housing male Russians together: 1) Lots of space with lots of hiding places and visual barriers or 2) Seperating them completely. I don't believe that the enclosure in the photo is nearly large enough to house two male Russian tortoises without constant aggression occuring. Their percieved territories are typically much larger than that.

This same situation often occurs with males of other Testudo species, but not usually to the constantly aggressive state that Russians tortoises exhibit.

 

[grogansilver]

That's very normal behavior for male Russian tortoises. By letting "nature run it's course" in a more confined area you could potentially be setting the more submissive male up for very serious physical injury. There are usually only two solutions for housing male Russians together: 1) Lots of space with lots of hiding places and visual barriers or 2) Seperating them completely. I don't believe that the enclosure in the photo is nearly large enough to house two male Russian tortoises without constant aggression occuring. Their percieved territories are typically much larger than that.

This same situation often occurs with males of other Testudo species, but not usually to the constantly aggressive state that Russians tortoises exhibit.

thank you for advise hes safe now!

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

That's a cool outdoor enclosure, but it's not nearly as big as a tortoise's territory in the wild, which can be a couple of acres. Male and female territories overlap considerably, which is fine as long as the females don't get mated too often. Males don't tolerate each other, however, so unless there is a lot of room, they must be kept separately.

 

[Terry Allan Hall]

Keep the male you like best and rehome the other...as has been mentioned, that enclosure is much too small for your 4-incher to have a chance at survival!

Or build a much bigger enclosure (50' X 30', with a lot of hiding places, might be large enough)...Male Russians are aggressive little thugs!

Like how you decorated the enclosure w/ bark, btw!