Tortoises

I currently have 2 Hermann's Tortoises (Testudo hermanni) named Cocoa & Sarge and a Redfoot Tortoise (Geochelone carbonaria) named Rocky.

Cocoa & Sarge

I have had Cocoa since March of 1996 when we went down to Florida for Bike Week. We picked up little Cocoa as a 4 month old hatchling at The Central Florida Reptile Farm in Cocoa Beach while we were there. The Abbotts are great tortoise keepers and I recommend them heartily as breeders. The picture on the left was taken soon after we got her.

This is a picture of Cocoa (right) with her new boyfriend "Sarge" in Sept. 2000 right after they first met. Sarge was in quarantine for 6 months after being purchased from the Abbotts in Florida in March 2000. They get along very well. To see more pictures of Cocoa and Sarge click here. Surprise of surprises; in November of 2000 there was some breeding activity happening in the kiddie pool. This is kind of funny because I was not expecting the breeding to be so "noisy". We have since relocated them to a larger indoor enclosure that measures about 6 x 4 feet on the floor. They seem to be enjoying it. And what became of the kiddie pool? Read on to find out!

Rocky

In early January 2000 I bought a hatchling Redfoot Tortoise from another great breeder closer to home in Rhode Island. They have since moved on to Tennessee. Rocky hatched on December 28, 1999. He was only

2 weeks old and still had his yolk sac attached when we brought him home. Right away he started eating like a little pig on various greens & fruit dusted with calcium powder. Redfoots eat a lot of fruit in the wild unlike other species of tortoises. If their diet doesn't include fruit in captivity they can get constipated very easily. A totally different animal so to speak than the Hermanns Tortoises.

Tortoises of different species should not live in the same enclosure because they can transmit diseases to one another. Cocoa and Sarge live in a plastic kiddie pool filled with cypress mulch rather than water. Rocky lives on a "Tortoise table" of sorts in another room. They all have heat lights and uvb lights (Zoo-Med Reptisun 5.0 to be exact).