Introducing male and female

[drquilter]

I got a call Friday from a friend who knew someone that needed to get rid of their RT they had had for 5 years due to the fact that the state does not let them keep them in their daycare. Of course I took 'it'. When I stopped by yesterday I was delighted to see it was a girl because we have a boy! It's a lot larger (6" vs 5 for ours), stubby tail, no . Definitely RT (4 toenails, though they are much shorter than ours) and also has almost no beak, presumably due to repeated hitting against her plexiglass enclosure (good theory?). I am keeping them separate for now though I am sure there is no need for quarantine since these people have had her for 5 years and she looks very healthy, though her skin was kind of dry (soaked her first thing and she is looking a lot better already). Last night I introduced them to each other, and he is VERY interested. He's 15 by our calculations and AFAIK has never seen a girl before! After sniffing her a while, he started following her everywhere, and trying to bite her front legs. I am not sure if he's being belicose or amorous but from what I read the end of the summer is not a good time for mating. Advice? I also need to figure out how large the eventual enclosure for both of them needs to be. I read somewhere it needs to be 10x5x3 (L,W,H) times the length of the turtle, which would be 60"x30"x18" - is that per turtle or for the largest? Tula lives in a 48x12x18 enclosure...

[cjicollectibles]

We added our female after our male last year. Just like you, shes bigger, etc.  It so happens our male does bite at her and stuff like you hear on the boards, but not to any violent degree. I've never seen him draw blood on her, like I've heard many times on the message board. But he does hound her a lot, annoy her with the head bobbing, etc.

So I think you just have to see how bad the behavior gets. I have not had to separate them to prevent her getting seriously hurt, but in other cases I read about here, that has sometimes been the case....

[drquilter]

Thanks for your response - good to know a similar behaviour has been observed before.

I also checked the RT website and figured out it was normal, but I don't want her to get hurt or scared when she is adapting to a new home).  He is not too aggressive, but very insistent )

And I just don't know if this is a good time for them to be mating, with winter coming and all (that is, if she lets him).

I will take it slowly and let them know each other more before I put them in the same enclosure...

[go_fish]

If and when you do put them together in the same enclosure, try to put as many visual barriers as possible with plants, decor, etc. This will allow her to 'get away' and have her own space, and he won't see her as much, so less hounding.

Just be careful she doesn't get stressed with the interaction. Torts live alone in the wild and can get away easy if another tort is hounding them. In captivity, they can't get away and so often the stress gets to the point the one being bullied stops eating.

I had to seperate my male for this reason...he was a huge bully of both the males AND females....

But really awesome you got a female! Maybe you can breed them next year   

[jacklee]

I believe the fact you have a female larger then your male will be of benefit. If she is like mine, and she gets enough of him, her size will allow her to just push him away. Keep us updated because I'm in the same boat as you. .Jack

[atomic punk]

It could go the other way too.  I have a female who is bigger than my male, and when I put them together, SHE started bullying him.  She has bitten him and drawn blood enough times that we finally had to separate them for his sake.  I was really surprised by that because, like you, I was worried that my male would bully her.

[KQ6AR]

sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Spring is my males most aggressive season.
I had to sell a large male a few years ago because he was to aggressive, that was with 5 large females in a large outdoor area.

[drquilter]

I am not sure I would call it bullying since he is not violent, but he is very persistent and she is not eating unless I take him out. I don't want her to be unhappy! I've installed visual barriers but she just hides most of the time and gets almost no time under the heat lamp!