I started with russian tortoises from 2 sources:



1) Purchased from reptile shop where owner was a veterinarian who inspected and wormed the animals.



2) Adopted from herp society. Animals looked healthy.



From these I was able to set up a breeding group for about 5 years. I then decided to get out of breeding tortoises and now I have just 2 animals left. Both are the last captive bred animals from my original stock.



So it is possible to do well with wildcaught animals.



I recommend adopting first, unless you can find captive bred animals. Adoption doesn't encourage removing more animals from the wild. Look the animals over. Look for runny noses, shell rot, signs of diarrhea, etc.



Good luck!

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• Need advice (I hate to ask this question - Wade, Sat Feb 23 21:34:50 2008
• RE: Need advice (I hate to ask this question - Wade, Sat Feb 23 23:16:57 2008
• RE: Need advice (I hate to ask this question - bradtort, Sun Feb 24 13:13:09 2008
• fixed second link - bradtort, Sun Feb 24 13:14:52 2008
• RE: fixed second link - Wade, Sun Feb 24 14:29:03 2008
• RE: fixed second link - Enkidu, Sun Feb 24 19:36:30 2008
• learning - Wade, Sun Feb 24 20:06:33 2008
• RE: learning - Wade, Sun Feb 24 20:22:38 2008
• RE: learning - bradtort, Mon Feb 25 08:13:50 2008
• RE: learning - VICtort, Wed Feb 27 01:06:37 2008
• Thanks - Wade, Tue Mar 4 11:48:05 2008
• RE: Need advice (I hate to ask this ques - melgrj7, Thu Feb 28 19:37:14 2008