sexing young tortoises

[dds7155]

Does anyone know about it, blood testing , i know it's been around for over 20 years with parrots, ,not sure it's done with Torts,, not that i want to breed ,but in years to come i may . was wanding how much it costs and what is involed ?

 

[Tom]

Doesn't exist for tortoises to my knowledge. If it does exist, it is not in common use.

 

[JoesMum]

It's certainly not in common use. As in all animals, blood tests would rely on the detection of levels of key hormones such as testosterone.

Just like humans, levels of those would be very low in juvenile torts and I suspect mistakes could easily be made until the tort is more mature, by which time you could tell by the tail anyway.

There would also be a lack of comparative data as I doubt that anyone has done a study of all species. Torts mature at vastly different rates depending on wild caught/captive bred, diet and environment and again that would skew the data.

 

[tortadise]

You can do endoscopy. That runs about 200. But need an experienced tortoise vet for it. They go in through the back leg area and visually see if the tortoise has, male or female organs.