If you have tortoises (or turtles) then you may suddenly find that one day, you’ve got some eggs on your hands but are these eggs going to turn into babies? Or are they simply unfertilized eggs that will never produce offspring? Well, it turns out that it’s relatively easy to find out. Can tortoises and […]

Tortoises can fight when left alone but it’s unlikely that they they would kill each other. It is possible that mixing two or more species of tortoise together might result in their deaths due to disease or infection from the other species.

There is no definitive scientific answer for why tortoises poop in water. One answer is that warm water relaxes a tortoise’s bowels making it easy to release poop. Another possibility is a “hygiene mechanism” in the wild (poop in running water and bye-bye poop!)

Since tortoises are reptiles, they are not capable of feeling “love” as we humans understand it. However, tortoises do show signs of affection and appreciation for their owners. They follow their pet parents around, tolerate handling, eat directly from human hands, and come to us when they see us.

There is no specific amount of time that tortoises need to exercise. But during the waking summer months, it is good to have your tortoise exercise for at least one hour a day. Try to encourage walking, gentle climbing, and some digging. During the colder months the waking hours for tortoises are reduced significantly (or completely, if hibernating) so exercise will naturally be less.

If your tortoise went missing, here is how and where to go look for them: look for burrows, look under things, inside anything they can crawl into, wait for the morning sun as it might bring the tortoise out of hiding, and alert the neighbors. If all else fails alert relevant authorities in your area, and advertise on Facebook or in your local paper.