How
to Tell the Gender?
Geochelone
Sulcata is a giant African Spur-thigh tortoise has a flat carapace.
The shape of the shell is rectangular. It is hard to tell the
sex before 3 years old.
Male
: Males
have a slightly concave plastron, elongated and slightly larger gular scutes
(the front part of the plastron). Mature males gular scutes
could be strongly and widely recurved and flared at the periphery to lift
the rear of the females carapace when mating. Visually, the
carapaces of the males tend to become more elongate with growth while those
of the females become more rotund.
Males have slightly longer thinker tails and the body size is generally
larger.
Female
: Female
have a shorter gular scutes at the front carapace. The tails
are also shorter compared with the males.
Nose
: The
most common symptom of coolness is runny or bubbly nose. Try
to keep the tortoise in a warm home and clean-up the nose with dry towel.
If the respiratory problem goes worse, must visit a veterinarian.
Rocky
has clean, dry noses. His eyes are big and round.
Eye
: Runny
eyes, dry eyes, eyes chesses and eyes can't open are common symptom on eye
problems. Clean the eyes with vitamin A & D oil capsule.
If the temperature is too hot, tortoise cries to keep the eyes wet.
Mouth
: A
over-bit mouth should be ground with a fine grindstone. Don't
feed with small and soft food. Tortoise needs to bite the food
to prevent the jaw grows too fast.
Food
: Soaked
dry grasses, weeds,
carrots and mustard greens are main food for tortoise.
Sprinkling the food with crashed egg shells
as calcium supplement once a week.
Rocky
always eat back his feces and
this habit keeps me busy on cleaning his territory.
One day, he passed out his penis when he discharged.
I was shocked and confirmed he is a BOY !
Rocky's
Plastron (Male Suclata Tortoise)
Shauna's
Plastron (Female Leopard Tortoise)
