Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I ordered a female three-toed, and they accidently sent me a male. This male is incredible! He's healthy, friendly, and has amazing colorization.

The only problem is, I have a male and a female already. I know that two males and one female may be a problem.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I do not want these males to fight, but I do like this new one. What are the chances they can possibly get along? Any insight would be welcome.

It all really depends on the males. Some males seem to get along just fine with other males, while others tend to be more agressive towards other males. In my experience, males tend to be more agressive towards one another in the spring and early summer, which is breeding season. As the summer progesses and breeding slacks off, so too does the agression. The only way to see if they will get along is to put them together for a while and see. When I first put my two males together, they were quite agressive, but after a few days it wore off. Of course they were at it every now and then during the spring, but it would wear off again in the summer. Good luck.

Steven

When you say aggressive, do you mean a little shoving, or outright biting? I have had my original male since I was a little kid and would not want anything to happen to him!

I've witnessed both shoving and biting. The biting I've observed has never been anything serious, and I've never had any injuries from it, but I guess if you had a more agressive male, injuries are possible. My opinion is to just put them together and see what happens. If they are too agessive, keep them seperated, but more than likely, even if they are agressive at first, they will settle down after a while.

Steven

Depends on the size of the enclosure. If you have a huge area, it may be possible. However, a 2.1 group is far from an ideal breeding colony, and this may cause a lot of stress to the female. In order to really "even" out the group in time you would want 3 more females so you would have a 2.4 colony. I would advise returning him for the female you ordered - maybe if the male is of high qaulity the female will be too?

Jesse

I have a few 3 toed males together and I have never seen them fight. Occasionally I see some sparring among ornates, but nothing serious. They just "head butt each other" and its not an everyday occurance or anything like that. I've seen males and females do this. When its between two of the same gender, it seems to be an establishment of dominance, maybe "get out of my territory".
When it is between male and female, its usually courtship.