Breeding Tortoises- Part I
Breeding tortoises isn’t often as easy as it is portrayed. Before you can get a clutch of viable eggs, you first need to make sure that your tortoises are healthy and compatible, as well as preparing the correct nesting site for your tortoise to deposit her eggs.
People often assume that breeding tortoises is as simple as placing a male and female together. This is not the case. Male tortoises are over amorous and have a strong desire to mate. If you keep tortoises in a 1:1 male: female ratio, your female will be harassed by the male who constantly wants to mate her. If she does get fertilised she is likely to not want to lay her eggs because of the male pestering her constantly. If you only have 1 male and 1 female, I would personally keep them separate except for supervised periods for mating purposes.
A much more suitable number would be 2-3 females per male. This allows him to spread his ‘attentions’ about and also allows the females to get away from the males. If you are keeping tortoises in a breeding situation then I would also provide a varied enclosure with many hiding places and a lot of objects to break up the line of sight.
Choosing tortoises to breed
Different species of tortoise should not be kept together, and especially not bred. The main reason is that most species have different courtship habits. Hermann tortoises spend their time biting and circling the female. They will occasionally bash the female to keep her still but this is not seen in every male. Ibera tortoises often ‘ram’ the female, and as such the female’s shell is adapted to cope with this. Aside from the difference in mating behaviours, the risk of parasites moving from one species to another is very high, and the likelihood of getting fertile eggs are minimal.
If you are 100% sure you have a number of unrelated tortoises of the same species & sub species, and you choose to breed them, be sure that any females with severe deformities are kept separate from males, as often females who have suffered MBD have trouble passing eggs and it can cause untold damage to them, as well as putting strain on their organs, to reproduce.