Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So after a lot of brainstorming about what kinds of reptiles i want to breed, and which I just want to keep as pets, I decided that the only ones I'm really really interested in breeding as of now are russian tortoises.

I still have a long time before my russian tortoise is an adult and I am really able to determine his sex and pick out some mates, but I would like to know if I can house him year round with a mate, or if I have to keep them seperately. We're building him a 4'x2'x2' enclosure. Would it be okay to house him in that with a female (if he's a male) all year round? The other idea I had was to house a male in one 4'x2' cage, and a female (or two?...or three?...that's probably too many) in another 4'x2' enclosure.

What's your input? I was dissappointed because we had picked out an area where we could fit a nice 6'x2' tortoise enclosure, but then we realized that whenever I play my drums, that room shakes pretty bad, and it gets pretty loud. I figured that would add unnecessary stress.

By the way, the area I was talking about towards the end is not in the same room as my drums (I keep them in the basement with my other musical supplies) but it's the room directly above.

A male/female pair in a 4x2 enclosure may be too stressful for the female. Males can be very persistent and sometimes cause injuries when they want to mate. And sometimes the female, who is generally larger, will retaliate. Then again, some males are mellow. But in my limited experience, it's the persistent males that lead to eggs.

I think you should be prepared to have seperate enclosures, one for the male and another for females. You could give them a trial period and see if they are OK together.

good luck!