Male tortoise harrassing Female

[Fern]

Ok, so, we just want to have a few pet tortoises and are not interested in breeding them at all but, we made the mistake of buying 2 males and 1 female. So,the two males are Active Guy and Mo and the female is Fern. We got Fern first and she's great but we thought we should get her company. So we looked around and the only add we could find was for two tortoises and we had to buy them together. So, we bought them and only when we picked them up realized they were both males. At the time, we didn't think it to be a problem. Then, Active Guy and Mo began to nip and fight over Fern. Mo won out and got rights to Fern. Now, Active Guy and Fern are buddies and have no problems but Mo is mean to Fern. Every day he nips and bites her and then mounts her but Fern doesn't like it. So recently, we put a 20 gallon tank in the baby pool and put Mo in it when he harrassed Fern to give Fern some time alone. But Mo doesn't like that. Then, today, I was at the other end of the house and I heard this kind of wimpering (no, it wasn't coming from my potbellied pig!). I walked over to the tortoise's baby pool and Fern was cornered and being bullied by Mo. Fern was making these wimpering noises that were pretty loud. So, I took Mo and put him in "Jail" and Fern stopped wimpering. Is she being hurt or is this part of the procces? Why would Mo bite her? What can we do to stop it? They all like living together and now Active Guy likes having Mo around to...  I'd hate to seperate them. Is this my only option?

Thanks

[go_fish]

Tortoises aren't social animals - most of them actually prefer to be alone. In the wild, they are always alone. So, you didn't really need to find playmates for Fern...  I think you have to seperate the aggressive male from Fern, and put him in a different enclosure entirely. In the wild, the female has the opportunity to run away from the male, but in capativity, she is trapped in the enclosure and can't get away.  All the chasing and biting will stress her out, and ultimately will have impacts on her health, not eating, etc  It's also been known that a male can harrass females so much, that they have ended up taking chunks of skin off. I think you should seperate them as soon as you can...

[Fern]

She lost one scale on her leg from when Mo bit her once. I think I'll either seperate Fern or Mo.

[KQ6AR]

This is normal mating behavior, the males can cause injuries to the females.
Even when I had 5 females with 3 males, in a 1000 sq. ft. area, the females occasionally got injuries.
I finally sold the 2 more aggressive males, & kept the more docile one. The one male serviced the 5 females without problems.

[Jay.j]

I have 3 females, 1 male & 1 very tiny not sure the 3 girls & the little one all live happily together & my boy, Mr Phoebe, has his own bachelor pad. Otherwise he hassles the girls to much, his fave girl barley has a chance to eat if he's in with them & normally she is a proper piggy. They only spend time together for breeding purposes.