Sex of horse field
- Thread starter Normski71
- Start date
I'm still learning, but I think you got a girl.
Thank you so much, that’s what I was hoping
Wait for some other more experienced keepers to confirm though. Like I said I'm still learning, but male Russians usually have giant tails.
Unique Username
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Most defenitly a female. As the others have said male RTs have notoriously large tails, third leg large. For the males who don't live up to the hype there are more subtle signs. The male cloaca(the hole in the tail) is a long slit going down the magority of the tail (easier for penies to come in and out of). The females cloaca is a stare shaped hole at the base of her tail. Also males usually have a spur at the tip of their tail. It's actually common for them to lose this spur in the wild, so it's not the most reliable way of telling. Other unreliable factors for Russians are size and anul scutes. Females are usually larger than males for all testudo species. Most male Russians end up being around 6" or so, while it isn't uncommen for females to reach 8". Anul scutes are usually more flared out for males (so they can pull their tails into their sides) where as females have more v shaped scutes encircling the tail like yours. For Russians scutes aren't the best because some males and females have the lesser of the two extremes and look identical.
Unique Username
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Speaking of wild caught, I am wondering if urs is cb or wc. If you purchased it from a reptile show, pet store, or criegs list and was told that it is 4 years old, they are probably lying. Most Russians in the pet trade today are wc, and it is impossible to tell the age of a wild caught tortoise. There are subtle signs between a 5 year old tortoise and 50 year old tortoise. Any where in between there is a guess. Could be 4, could be 14, no way to tell. I am only asking because if you don't know the sex of the tortoise, you either raised it from a hatchling,aquired it from someone who raised it from a hatchling, or got it from a uneducated owner who didn't know the sex and lied about the age.
Hi there, thanks for your very informed answers and I am very grateful. I got her as a baby from a pet store, she was tiny and that was 4.5 year ago. My guess is the workers there didn’t know as it’s hard to sex a tortoise as a baby. Thanks again for the answer. Really has helped
