Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have a few extra male flordia boxes and a lot of female ornates, if i mix the two will they breed and produce offspring? havn't done it yet but if it can be done i might try it, they will probably make nice looking baby's

That's a really bad idea. It might technically work, it could potentially produce hybrids, which are sterile animals and not always healthy. It would be unreliable, though, and besides that, you will find that mutt animals are much harder to find homes for. Floridas sell like hot cakes, ornate hatchlings do as well, a mix of the two would not. I saw a man selling florida mixes (but with other eastern subspecies, so they were not hybrids). All the other hatchling boxie vendors were selling them like mad, his price was marked down twice and they still hadn't sold by the time I left. For the most part, turtle hobbyists like to know the species they are getting. Many also want to later breed the species, and therefore need a specific animal.

In all likelyhood, if you mix the two, you will possibly get some florida babies for a while, which are laid from stored sperm. After that time you will most likely not get any hatchlings ever again, as even if they mate, ornates cannot easily fertilize floridas. The random hatchlings you might get would most likely be sterile, as are most hybrids, and could be sickly, as are some hybrids.