Reptile & Amphibian Forums

As previously stated, I have a female eastern box turtle and a male three-toed box turtle. Since waking up from hibernation, he has not left her alone. We have seen them breeding twice already in the last week and I'm sure he has gotten to her even more. I feel this is stressing her out too much. We had intentions of making the habitat bigger and putting a section just for him by himself. Would this cause him stress to be by himself and not be able to breed? I thought about releasing him into the wild on some beautiful land we have, but we've had him about 6 mos now and not sure how long the people that we rescued him from had him. Would he be able to adjust in the wild again or would he be ok in a outdoor habitat away from the female. His area would be 6' x 4'. We love him and want to keep him, but want to do what is best. (see previous not about cross breeding) Thanks

The male would do very well by himself. He may even do better, since he wouldn't be constantly preoccupied with breeding.

It's not usually a good idea to release pets. It is especially true that no turtle should ever be released into an area unless it came from that exact spot.

Indeed you can. I've seen males become rather social when they have humans to interact with, rather than other turtles. I once had a male that lived in my snake room when it was too cold for him to be outside. He's follow me around the room, seeing what I was up to.

Tim

Third Eye

Putting him by himself would be best if he only has one female around. I have 5 females plus 1 juvie and 1 adult male in the same pen. That seems to work for that pack. The other two males I keep inside and they roam the house. There is enough space for them to only come across each other every once in a while so as not to stresss them. But yeah, keeping males alone is a good idea.

Thanks for all the info. We really didn't want to let him go. He is beautiful and very friendly. We're going to work on expanding their habitats next weekend. I'm still guessing she will produce eggs soon. They will be intrebreds. I will need to find good homes for them when they get older. Thanks again!

This reminds me of a study I read somewhere on the web a few years ago. It had to do with attraction & mating. Basically, they found that a male boxie has to literally be in physical sight of a female before he "notices" her. At the time I thought it was one of those "I-can't-believe-someone-actually-studied-this" stories, but now that I'm more into boxies, the information is helpful and makes good sense.

My (8) babies are just beginning to show signs of gender, so I'll be separating them, soon.

I think I know what study you refer to: it was done as a side effort of a repatriation study. The people who did it were trying to understand how box turtles found mates, and whether scent or pheromones had anything to do with the process.