Heidi butting and mounting Sheldon
 

Hi everyone,

The past few days Heidi has been displaying dominant behaviours over Sheldon, and I just caught her mounting her and 'shell butting' her. Is this because she is smaller and trying to become dominant over Sheldon? As Sheldon has never displayed these behaviours other than one occasion of shell butting.

Any ideas?

Thanks guys

It could well be dominance Emily. When did you last have them sexed? The other thing to consider is whether Heidi is male. My three youngest males were in together until they were two and then the mounting and butting started!
Florence and Arabella share a table together really nicely and there's not really been much dominant behaviour between them so I can't really speak of having experience between females displaying dominant behaviour but I know it often happens.

Heidi -

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5599f7a4.jpg

Thanks for your reply Emma, I have put a new thread up asking for someone to sex them and see if they are both still girls.
Hopefully it's not because Heidi has become a boy .... They were getting on fine then I brought them a much bigger table and ever since then Heidi has acted this way.

As they both look female , I would say it's dominance behaviour

Yeah that's what I thought too as Sheldon has always been the dominant one due to her size, maybe Heidi was trying to take control a bit

Looking at their carapace photos they both look to be female and so that must be reassuring. Hopefully Heidi will calm down and they can enjoy living together in their lovely table. She just wanted to put Sheldon in her place for once. ;)

How big is the enclosure?
Are there enough eyeline breaks?
Enough space and objects placed so they can't see each other all the time, can make a big difference:0)

Yeah it's very reassuring Emma, I was worrying I would have to separate. I hope she does calm down :) maybe it's because Heidi is smaller she was trying to show she is also tough haha.

Sandy, The table is 4ft by 2ft 11" and currently there isn't a lot else in there so I am going to get some plants and rocks today after your suggestion :)

One of my female sub adults have done this to another female :) x