Tortoise sellers?

These 5 dealers have shown Hingeback Tortoises for sale and I'd like to know if anybody has had good or bad experience with any of them? Thanks for any response.

1.Underground Reptiles
2.Backwater Reptiles
3.Tortoise Town
4.Snakes at Sunset
5.HaHa Reptiles

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The two that I know of are backwater and tortoise town. Both of these companies have bad reputations. Personally I wouldn't buy an animal from either of them.

1-3 should be avoided. I couldn't tell you on 4 & 5. If you check the hingeback section there are some very passionate Kinixys breeders. Your best bet may be to reach out to one of them.

I've known Ryan, the owner of Underground REPTILES for close to 30 years. Back when he was a kid selling reptiles out of a rental warehouse and calling himself "Box Of Snakes".
He is honest. But his keeping of tortoises for sale is often not the best. This may be because he isn't at the store very often?
For example, on one visit I saw hatchling Redfoot on rabbit pellets and the tortoises were actually coated in dust. Super dry, with no access to the enclosed high sided water bowl. On another visit he had a beaten up Redfoot housed with THREE Russians!
So even though I think he would do you right through customer service, i can not actually recommend buying from his inventory sight unseen.
And that's sad. Because he's a great guy. It seems that animal welfare has become not so important.

The issue I also see - is that you just don't know where the animals came from. Most of them buy from any source they can find. Tortoise Town is constantly advertising for animals. I have even sold them some great aquatics. However, they will buy from most anyone. Some are good sources who care for or start babies correctly, while other sources are the ones that do not. Personally, I would opt for dealing with a private breeder I can talk to whenever possible.

"Personally, I would opt for dealing with a private breeder I can talk to whenever possible."

Completely agree! However as things stand today few of these are available and unless we want to wait years to start something with them or add to our colony we need to grab most any we find available if what we are looking for. Treat for internal parasites immediately and treat well to get established.
Thanks for answering Mark.

Was at TTPG last week and even there there were just a few Hingeback folks and I don't think I got to talk to all of them. Also our informal gathering never happened so contact is quite hit and miss among us it seems.

Sorry I missed you there. We did have several informal gatherings and meals. All the tortoise forum folks we could identify and talk to. @Tom @kingsley @Kapidolo Farms @Olddog @Neal @NorCal tortoise guy @Grandpa Turtle 144 I had my Smart Enclosures set up in the lobby. Will - @Kapidolo Farms did one of the presentations. I thought the TFO folks there had introduced themselves so we could identify each other.

I know of several like this. Such a shame.

Sorry we missed you. I didn't know you were there. I check tortoise forum even while I'm out of town. Shoot me a message next year!

We spoke a bit at the TTPG conference. I would guess you saw the presentation from Jeremy Thompson and his colleague David. I can not speak on their behalf, but he would know best and may be sort out some animals as part of his greater cooperative program.

Sorry to say I don't recall his @name here on TFO, but a read through the Kinixys subforum will get you there.

Will (I believe) yes I saw every presentation and went on the field trip. Talked with Jeremy about gathering but he seemed a bit overwhelmed with things. Skipped thurs eve gathering because I needed more substantial American food instead of Thai but didn't get the impression Hingebacks was what it was about. At least there's been more contact now as well as knowledge added.

I'd like to come in '20 but not at all sure the proper critter sitting will be available at my place. Otherwise will do.

I have visited all of these websites, and this is what I have found
1. Underground reptiles sell tortoise at low prices, but not sure about the tortoises are kept
2. They seem alright overall, but I have never ordered from them
3. Very high pricing
4. Looks good, has good reviews, a little more pricy than the first two, but looks a lot better
5. Most Reviews state that shipping took longer than expected, or that they had to spend a long time calling and texting the people before they would respond

I would always prefer to by from a (preferably local) private breeder. Private breeders are usually more reliable.

That being said you don't happen to raise Hingebacks do you?

Nope. Sorry.

I've never dealt with them but have heard good things about Arizona Tortoise Compound. I believe he is a member here. They have Speke's hatchlings available.

Thank you. Yes I have met Andrew. Spekes are the ones most easily available today and not what I'm looking for. While I have no room to set up for the jungle Homes or Schwiggers currently I am interested in all the other savannah types.

Bill, we had a get together Thursday night for the Kinixys people, but it was more of a social outing. As far as Jeremy and I know, there were ZERO hingebacks of any species imported to the U.S. in 2019. We didn't see ANY. Perhaps we missed some, but from what we understand, Mozambique is no longer exporting Spekii, and Togo didn't export any Homeana, as they are now realizing the trade is completely unsustainable. The bottom line is that 2019 might be the year and look back and say, "remember when we could easily get Kinixys?

You have a male and female Spekii, right? I think the best thing for you to do is successfully get them breeding and produce hatchlings which you could then trade with others. To get a Nogueyi at this point, you're going to have to find a needle in a haystack locally, as I did with the female that I found this summer.

You have a great opportunity to produce Spekii- My suggestion to you is put EVERYTHING you have into getting those animals healthy and reproducing. That would be a great way to start and show others that you've got one species down.

There WILL be many more hatchlings coming. I just hatched my first homeana, and I have 15 eggs between Homeana (6) and Nogueyi (9) in the incubator developing. Jeremy is working with a big group. So is MT Brooks. Chris Leone has Will A.'s Nogueyi group and is establishing a nice Spekii group.

We'd love for you to be successful producing spekii!

-Tom A.

Hey Tom, Thanks for the encouragement and information. The 3 Spekes I have are all female. One fully mature, another within 1/2 inch in size and my smallest about an inch smaller than the mature one. A keepers dream as they all started eating like real chow hounds as soon as I got them. These cold months planning to rework an ex snake enclosure I built years ago and a bit of work on a big sweater box for hatchlings. I plan(hope)to get one or two mature males if available from Las Vegas Exotics about April when warmer shipping weather comes again AND I have a place to keep them.

Got it, for some reason I thought you had a male. I'd be looking to get that male from Ken sooner than later...if you see a temperature window open up after Christmas and you get set up correctly, I'd pull the trigger...Waiting until April might be too late! Seriously, I don't think we'll see any more come in for a while...Also, Speke's are the fastest growing hingebacks and are the ones that reach sexual maturity the soonest. Get those girls growing! Some of the captive bred Speke's are laying eggs at age 4, if memory serves.