Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have recently acquired a desert tortise from a family friend. The vet told me that it was a Female in her mid to late teens. I would love to breed her! But i know very little about how to go about it. Any one know where I could get/ borrow a male from? And any advise about how to get her ready to breed would be helpful. She has just started to hybrinate for the winter but I like to be prepared! Thanks in advance!!
Jamie

Jaime

I'm not sure where you are in this world (CA?), but your local Turtle and Tortoise Club should have an adoption service for unwanted California Desert Tortoises. The California Turtle and Tortoise Club would be a great resource. I am sure they will require membership though which is $15 a year. You should have no problem finding a male. It is usually the females you have trouble finding for adoption. It has been my experience that females need to be around 20 years old to reproduce with size being more important than age. Others can input on this. Here is their website:

http://www.tortoise.org/

Good Luck,

Tortuga
Link

If it is, in fact, a desert tortoise, why are you trying to hibernate it? Desert torts do not hibernate.

Kelly Wood

Desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) do indeed hibernate. You may be confusing them with arid region species such as the sulcata. The area in California where desert tortoises are found can be quite cold in the winter--I can attest to the fact that the Mojave desert region can dip into the 20s, and maybe even lower.

See www.tortoise.org (CTTC) for more info.
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Sohni
Northern California

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.1 Rubber Boas
1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

Oops. you are correct, I was thinking of the sulcata when I posted that message. I guess that is why one should never post when tired because they do not comprihend all that is said.

I do apologize for my wrong info.

Kelly Wood

I cannot speak to other desert tortoise species, but the California Desert Tortoise does hibernate and in my opinion the hiberation is required for nice steady, smooth growth. I know people who do not hibernate and their torts are fine, but I think you'll have a healthier tortoise if you hibernate him/her.

Also, something else I thought of for the original poster of this thread. If your tortoise is indeed a CDT then you need to be sure it is registered with the California Fish and Game. Registration is free and the form can be foudn with your local CTTC club or I'm sure you can get one somehow from the website. What you do is fill out the form, send it in and then they send you the original form with a sticker. The sticker is then afixed to the tortoises shell. Usually people put it on the belly or on one of the rear scutes. I have also seen hatchlings registered where the keeper keeps the tags on hand in case of an inspection but does not afix it until the tortoise is large enough to have the sticker. Also, if the tortoise is ever lost and foudn by someone, they will see the sticker, contact F&G and you'll get the tortoise back.

The point is: Register her if she isn't already!

Tortuga

A little sidenote...
If you're going to stay within the letter of the law in CA it specificly states that you will not attempt to reproduce the Desert tortoise as a condition of keeping one but...
Ed

Ed, do you know if the law says no captive reproduction period, or if it just prohibits breeding for sale? CA F & G laws get really strange sometimes. I have a pair of rubber boas that I hope to breed in the spring, and I can't sell the offspring, but I can give them away. And get this: you cannot buy or sell CB rubber boas in California, but you can obtain them from the wild with a valid fishing license (except for one ssp). This is to protect the species...go figure. And don't ask how I got mine, lol.
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Sohni
Northern California

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.1 Rubber Boas
1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

No captive breeding. End of story. Now, in practice... there is yet another story but on the books captive breeding of Desert Tortoises is not allowed by design.
On the Rubber boas that is also true. I'm acquainted with one person who has made this his lifes passion from childhood to adult. We're talking border obsession here. I believe he is trying to get the law changed similar to the roseys and kings.
Ed

Would that be Richard Hoyer? He's a fountain of knowledge on Charina bottae, that's for sure. His son, Ryan, did petition F & G for a regulation change a couple of years ago, went to a hearing in Sacramento & all that, but no go. He has moved out of state, so someone else will have to continue the challenge.
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Sohni
Northern California

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.1 Rubber Boas
1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

Yup that's the guy. Those snakes are his lifes passion and he is very good at the study of those critters. He's probably the greatest single source of info on those snakes. I heard that his presentation was extremely good and impressive.
Ed

I bet he wouldn't have liked to hear my friend refer to mine as "big slugs," lol. I don't care, I think they're beautiful. Having rubber boas has been a life-long dream of mine.
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Sohni
Northern California

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.1 Rubber Boas
1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

I'd love to get a group but I'd also like to collect them myself. (one day) That's another target species from when I was younger (notice I didn't say kid?).
Ed

Ed, I'm sure Richard would take you out collecting at the drop of a hat if you were to take a trip up to his area. He's made the offer before on the Rubber Boa Forum. I have yet to see one in native habitat myself. I also understand that there's an area about 35 miles north of Truckee where they can be found if you road cruise at night, but I can't for the life of me remember what it's called. Something Meadows Reservoir? I'll email you with the name later.
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Sohni
Northern California

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.1 Rubber Boas
1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

Can you tell me more about her? What kind of accomodations do you have for her, and where do you live? I would love to adopt a desert tort sometime in the future when I have more space, but I'm not sure how well it would do up here where it is damper than in So. Cal.
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Sohni
Northern California

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.1 Rubber Boas
1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

I personally don't think you sould get a male and try to breed them just for the sake of it. There are too many desert tortoises already going to people who do not care for them properly. I can't ell you how many people I've run across who feed them nothing but lettuce and "hibernate" them in a cardboard box in the garage or in the house where it is too warm.

What would you do with a bunch of baby tortoises? Give them to your friends who "really, really want them" because of the novelty of it, but don't know a whit about taking care of them and don't care to find out?

God forbid should you give a baby tortoise to the person who becomes enthralled with the critter to later become the greatest champion of these tortoises.
Ed

Well, Ed, he does have a point. It's not really a good idea to establish a breeding project (one time or otherwise) unless you know what you're going to do with the offspring. Since you can't legally breed desert tortoises, you can't legally sell them or even give them away, which means having to be pretty selective about the homes they're going to, or keeping them yourself. Add to that the specialized housing requirements of tortoises in general, and it's obvious that to breed or not breed is a complex decision that any responsible breeder would not take lightly.

I'm not saying do or don't breed; just think about it carefully first.
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Sohni
Northern California

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.1 Rubber Boas
1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

The wierd thing is that there are provisions to dispose of 'inadvertant' baby tortoises. You can give them away but they too have to be registered.
Ed

Like I said, some of the CA Fish & Game regulations are just strange...must be run by CalTrans.

So you can't intentionally breed them, but you could have an accidentally-on-purpose breeding? Oh, my! Where did those baby tortoises come from?
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Sohni
Northern California

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.1 Rubber Boas
1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

.

Again you are a voice of reason around here. All I was saying is that a decision to breed any animal should not be made hastily, or from some vague idea of it being fun to try. This would especially be true of a specialized animal like the tortoise. A rat or a hamster might be different. Too many people "want" a tortoise for the novelty of it without understanding much about the specialized care needed to keep them. I'm not saying that you should never, ever breed desert tortoises, but that you should base it on a carefully thought-out conclusion. Of course, if you are like me and acquire a few of them at the same time, you may have reproduction whether you plan on it or not. I simply don't have the space to keep the sexes separate with my CDTs. I do keep the other species separated by sex, though. I believe this is very important for the health of the females. If they are constantly being harrassed by the males wanting to mate, it really stresses them out.

I now try to limit the number of babies I get with my CDTs. I used to dig up the eggs and incubate them and all that, but now I just let nature take it's course and leave them in the ground. Fewer survive, of course, but I still get a few babies each year.

Ed, you know as well as I do that if you compared your scenario of a future tortoise expert being spawned against that of someone just getting one for their kid because the kid nagged them constantly, and then finally broke down and got one, putting it in a ghastly "aquarium-with-a-light-bulb-feeding-it-nothing-but-head lettuce" setting, the former would be about one in a thousand, and the light bulb would be in the VAST majority.

Is it worth it to torture so many animals on the off-chance one person may turn into a true tortoise lover? I, for one, don't think so.

I'm gonna have to claim ignorance on this one.
I go to about 3 major herp shows a year... I worked in a petshop for about 2 years (way back when)... and I give about 5 or 6 talks a year to various organizations and the 'norm' is that the kids are usually sharp and the parents are usually very supportive of those kids. That is the majority I see.
Yup, there is the occasional brat but that is definately the manority.
I really think it comes down to if you are an optimist or...
I like to think I'm an optimist. Give it a chance and it will work kind of thing.
Ed