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Old 15-09-2015, 08:38 PM   #1
Kighill
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Default Mixing tortoises

Please excuse my ignorance on this one but I know the mixing of separate species of tortoise is considered/proven to be bad with the possibility of cross contamination/spread of disease.

My question is does this apply when housing Hermann tortoise?

Namely Western Hermanni Hermanni and Eastern T.H Boettgeri?

Any dangers housing both together (same sex, not male and female)

Thank you

Last edited by Kighill; 15-09-2015 at 08:41 PM.
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Old 16-09-2015, 04:49 PM   #2
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That's a can of worms !
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Old 16-09-2015, 05:01 PM   #3
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That's a can of worms !
oh a really wriggly wriggly load. My understanding is that they are sub species and if so will meet in the wild. lots of people have mixed sub species and not found a problem. and even different species and not found issues over the years. With Hermann's i'm not so sure how close a sub species they are and whether that would make a grande difference.

I wouldn't mix my TGG & Ibera as she would eat him and he would shell shock her, but that's more characteristics, apart from for an example he is bigger and stronger shell for absorption and a TGG would probably break under the ramming. cause all sorts of problems and anxieties.

If they got on would I ? I probably would be tempted with these two, maybe, but rule of thumb is not to with completely different species. cb
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Old 16-09-2015, 05:53 PM   #4
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In my experience male Westerns are extremely aggressive towards males of their own and the other sub species to the extent that mine cannot be mixed with males of any other sub species/species.

May just be my male I suppose but my male T.H Boettgeri and T.T.Herc are far more placid together.
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Old 16-09-2015, 05:58 PM   #5
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My females of all three Hermanns sub species now live together. This is because I no longer breed tortoises but mainly because I've had them a long time and I'm confident the disease risk is minimal.
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Old 16-09-2015, 07:26 PM   #6
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I agree with Kirkie about the male hermanni hermanni.

I've got 4 and I've had to spend money and use up space with separate habitats for each of them. I've now given up trying to keep any combination of these males in the same enclsoure.
The leg biting was one thing, but the violent ramming and head biting was a bit much. I do love 'em tho!

Meanwhile I've got a bunch of female hermanni hermanni in together and the only time there is any friction is when one of them has to lay.
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Old 22-09-2015, 11:51 PM   #7
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I should add that with mine the serious fighting didn't start until the males were 5 years + in age so if the tortoises in the question are really young then they might be OK for quite some time.
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Old 23-09-2015, 12:02 AM   #8
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It is all down to temptation, my original thoughts were only to keep Hermanni Hermanni.
This is still the plan however as all of you will know it can be rather difficult to stick to the plan!
I thought it better to ask prior to making any long term decisions.
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Old 23-09-2015, 01:10 PM   #9
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Please remind me how many little hermanni hermanni you got?
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Old 23-09-2015, 08:23 PM   #10
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Please remind me how many little hermanni hermanni you got?
I have four at the moment all hatched to be ladies ( only four or five years to find out) All were hatched in June 2015 and weigh between 16 and 20 grams.
They measure between 4.3 and 4.8 cm.

Have you managed to rear any this year?
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