Reptile & Amphibian Forums

earlyer today i noticed my tortise's leg was bleeding a bit i think that my male did it to her now since it was tiny do i really need to do any thing or just leave it alone also is there any thing i can do to give my female a break from the male short of separating them and can these breeding injuries get more serious? thank you for reading.

Whenever I saw an injury I generally washed it off and applied a little antibiotic ointment.

But most important thing to do: separate the animals. Males are just too persistent sometimes.

Now would be a good time to use that indoor enclosure if you have it ready. If not, find some way to divide the outdoor pen in two. Maybe slip a board down the middle and prop it up with bricks.

And if you can't separate them, at least put more visual barriers into the pen so the male can't always see the female. Rocks, logs, blocks, etc.

Food also distracts the male. You could keep piling his favorite food in front of him :->

Mine were always obsessed with carrots.

does it matter what type of log so long as it is not cedar because right now i have a pile of sticks from lilac/some type of evergreen(not cedar) and the stuff from the ever green was dead if it makes a difference should i have more than one outdoor hide box because i have one in their out door enclosue and whatever burrows they have dug. thank you for the reply.

>>does it matter what type of log so long as it is not cedar because right now i have a pile of sticks from lilac/some type of evergreen(not cedar) and the stuff from the ever green was dead if it makes a difference should i have more than one outdoor hide box because i have one in their out door enclosue and whatever burrows they have dug. thank you for the reply.

Don't have pine or cedar in my yard, so I never thought about it. I'd look the wood up on the web for toxicity.

Multiple hide boxes could help.

just out of curiosity it seems that with my male tortise constantly mounting the female or at least trying to, why does nothing ever happen with the female, why do eggs not develop? also is there any way to stimulate breeding/mating/egg laying without hibernation? and is there a safe way to hibernate without a refrigerator? again thank you for the replys.

I posted something last night and it disappeared.

It may take time and luck to get fertile eggs. I adopted a pair of russians and they didn't produce a hatchling for two or three years. It took a better diet, sunshine, and maybe hibernation.

During the winter my torts stayed in the basement, where the temps drop down into the 50s from December to February. The torts went into hibernation without any special effort beyond extra soaks and no food for a couple weeks. When temps got above 60F again, the torts woke up.

Good luck!