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TurtReynolds

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Hey. New to the forum. I own a 1.5 year old redfoot tortoise I've dubbed turtle Reynolds. Awesome little guy and cant wait to find a second.
 

T Smart

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Hi.

Tortoises should never be housed together. It's stressful and leads to many problems. I'm sure Reynolds will do just fine alone!

Anyways, welcome to the forum!
 

TurtReynolds

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Care to elaborate? The opinion of housing multiples seems to only be an issue if its cross species or size is out of balance.
Thanks!
 

T Smart

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Care to elaborate? The opinion of housing multiples seems to only be an issue if its cross species or size is out of balance.
Thanks!

(Hopefully a more experienced member can elaborate.)

It's my understanding that this only creates unnecessary stress. You are essentially creating competition for food, basking zones, hiding/sleeping areas, etc. Considering that tortoises are territorial by nature, you can see how a problem might arise. Then it only takes time for one to lose out, typically from too much stress. I understand that one might want to provide a "friend", but the reality is that tortoises live in solitude.
 

LaLaP

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Hi and welcome!!

Here is just one of many posts on the forum explaining why keeping tortoises together is not a good idea.

https://www.tortoiseforum.org/threa...together-a-lesson-learned-the-hard-way.94114/

You can read loads more just by searching various phrases like: keeping pairs, bullying, housing tortoises together... the list seems endless as well as the unfortunate stories.
Luckily you just have the one lovely tortoise so there's no problem! Enjoy
Reynolds!
 

JoesMum

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Hi there

Torts are territorial. In the wild they roam large distances, meet up to mate and move on.

Redfoots are better behaved than some species and some TFO keepers do very well with large herds of redfoots. Kept as a pair you are likely to have problems.

There is always a dominant animal and with only one subordinate animal there is nobody else to take the share of the dominant animal’s displays.

Keeping 3 or more is more likely to work, but you do need a very large enclosure with plenty of sight barriers. And you do need to keep an eye on things as there are never any guarantees.
 

Tom

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Hey. New to the forum. I own a 1.5 year old redfoot tortoise I've dubbed turtle Reynolds. Awesome little guy and cant wait to find a second.
Hello and welcome. Groups of juveniles of the same species can usually work. Its just pairs that are the problem. If you only want two, just house them separately.
 

Yvonne G

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Hi, and welcome!

When you have two tortoises that are confined within walls that one can't escape from, you have a dominant and a submissive. The dominant is always telling the submissive to get out of his territory. The submissive is stuck there, can't get out. So he stays hidden, trying to keep out of dominant's sight. He stops eating, he stops growing, he eventually dies.
 

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