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Aldabra tortoise help
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by herpboy on December 18, 2006
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This one may be a little off the beaten path, but here it goes. Does anyone have any experience with (Geochelone gigantia), the Aldabra tortoise. If so, please tell me what you have observed, and exactly what the situation was when you were caring/observing them.
feedback is greatly appreciated,
Bryan Hudson
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RE: Aldabra tortoise help
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by Cro on December 18, 2006
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Bryan,
When I worked at the Atlanta Zoo, we had a small herd of Aldabra Tortoises that we kept out in what we called the preserve. It was basically an area attached to the reptile building with 5 foot tall walls made of concrete block. It had a dirt floor and grass growing.
There was this door about 3 foot square that the turtles would use to come into a area of the reptile building that was next to the furnace room.
We let the turtles out in the morning most of the year, unless it was really cold, and rounded them up at night back inside the building, and closed the door to the outside.
They were fed a salad mixture of fresh lettuce, carrots, apples, bannanas, and other assorted fruits. They also had dried hey in the inside inclosure for them to kind of bed in to keep them off the concrete floor.
They were very friendly turtles, and liked getting the area behind their ears scratched. You did not quite trust them though when feeding, as their mouths were big enough to take a hand off, so we carefully fed them by hand only on rare occasions.
They could move quite fast for a large turtle, especially, if there was food they were going to.
Breeding behavior was quite humerous. The males were very well endowed, and spent a lot of time chasing the females. The breeding males would let out this very, very loud roar sound that could be heard all over the zoo. Folks would often ask what animal was making that noise, as it sort of sounded like a lion roaring, or a sea-lion or wallarus roaring. We did get some eggs from them, and hatched a few young over the years.
Some of them were placed at the childrens zoo in the summers for kids to see.
I would guess that they are still at the zoo, as they are very long lived animals. But I seem to remember that they were on long time loan from another zoo, so it is possible they were sent back somewhere else.
Anyway, they are very kool turtles.
Galapagos Island turtles are more well known than Aldabras, and slightly larger, but I think the Aldabra Tortioses were very fun to work with.
When I worked there, they weighed from 150 LBS to 250 LBS each, but are probably a lot larger now.
Also, they could be stubborn at times in the summer about wanting to go inside when it was still light out.
We had this wooden stick you could tap on the shell to get them mooving in a slow motion stampeed toward the door. If it was spring or fall or winter, they would line up at the door just before dark or all ready be inside at dark. That makes me think that in the wild they probably used some kind of shelter during the night for protection.
Hope this helps. Best Regards JohnZ
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