I am currently spray misting my baby sulcatas and leos.
swalker said:I am a South African who has recently moved to the US. I kept and bred Pardalis for many years back home. I have seen both smooth and pyramided Leopards ''in the wild''. ''In the wild'' sadly does not really exist. Thousands and thousands of Leopards are kept illegally as pets in back gardens in SA and then released by their owners into the wild, so when you catch a so called wild animal, you have no idea if it has ever been in captivity. I had a couple of adults that had super smooth shells. Will try and dig out some old pictures from years gone by and refresh my memory. A number of my babies are still with friends who have grown them from babies in captivity over the last 10 years. Will get pics of those as well and we can see how they look.
swalker said:I am a South African who has recently moved to the US. I kept and bred Pardalis for many years back home. I have seen both smooth and pyramided Leopards ''in the wild''. ''In the wild'' sadly does not really exist. Thousands and thousands of Leopards are kept illegally as pets in back gardens in SA and then released by their owners into the wild, so when you catch a so called wild animal, you have no idea if it has ever been in captivity. I had a couple of adults that had super smooth shells. Will try and dig out some old pictures from years gone by and refresh my memory. A number of my babies are still with friends who have grown them from babies in captivity over the last 10 years. Will get pics of those as well and we can see how they look.
Hi Tom, I left SA in 2000 before I had a digital camera, so will have to dig out some of the very few pics that I took at the time. I did not even think of pyramiding as an issue at the time. My torts were just so healthy and happy and I thought ''rougher'' shells were natural. In fact, I had never even heard of it until I starting looking to get torts again after a 12 years hiatus. I now know for certain some of my babies that grew up in captivity had some pyramiding. If I can find the pics of their first few years, it will tell us for certain.Tom said:swalker said:I am a South African who has recently moved to the US. I kept and bred Pardalis for many years back home. I have seen both smooth and pyramided Leopards ''in the wild''. ''In the wild'' sadly does not really exist. Thousands and thousands of Leopards are kept illegally as pets in back gardens in SA and then released by their owners into the wild, so when you catch a so called wild animal, you have no idea if it has ever been in captivity. I had a couple of adults that had super smooth shells. Will try and dig out some old pictures from years gone by and refresh my memory. A number of my babies are still with friends who have grown them from babies in captivity over the last 10 years. Will get pics of those as well and we can see how they look.
Hello and welcome. So glad to hear from you. We'd all love to hear more about your tortoises and any info you can share with us about diet, housing, temps..., anything really. Pics would be fantastic. There are many people here in the states that believe that some leopards pyramid in the wild. I don't. When I was there in South Africa, I observed exactly what you just described about how its really hard to still call anything you find out there "wild". There are so many of them being raised in captivity and then released when they get too big, or they just escape, or the people just get tired of them and turn them loose somewhere out in the country side.
Anyhow, Thanks for joining and sharing. Looking forward to more.
Neal said:Good post swalker.
What was their behavior like in the winter? Did they ever have a hibernation period?