Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[Bedley]

Hi all,


I have just recived an email from The Living Rainforest!

I sent them an email asking if the Hermann's Tortoises come from the UK.

Heres the Email i got back

From: Steven Gill (steven@gill6868.fsnet.co.uk)
Sent: 23 April 2008 20:16:30
To: rainasrats@hotmail.com

Hi Raina,They are from Slovenia, but have all been quarantined and wormed. Hope you get chance to come and pay us a visit.


Is there any way that i will know that they have been Quarantined and wormed?


heres The Living Rainforests Website

http://www.the-livingrainforest.co.uk/
_________________
2.2.0 Dogs
0.0.1 Tortoise
9.9.0 Rats
2.0.0 G Pigs
1.0.0 Cat (RIP T.C 12/04/2002 - 19/08/2007)
I tried to snort coke once but the ice cubes got stuck up my nose.
http://www.hermannstortoise.co.nr

[Bri.]

I've dealt with Steve quite a few times over the years. Great guy with some stunning animals.
I'm guessing he means that he has quarantined and wormed them himself before they went out for sale in the shop. With them being reptiles they are not required to go into a normal Quarantine Centre. As such you are going to have to trust him.

A lot of the torts currently available in the UK are imports from alledged captive breeding farms in countries like Slovenia.

[Central Scotland Reptiles]

I have had dealings with Steven before, if he says they have been quarantined and wormed, that would be good enough for me.
_________________
Fraser Gilchrist
Central Scotland Reptiles - "Finding Beauty in the Beasts"

[mark_w]

[mark68]

I think Bri is right. I know the Tortoise trust have looked into this and cannot find any evidence that these east European farms (especially in Slovenia) actually exist. I will stick my neck out and say Slovenian = W/C.

There is one obvious piece of evidence to support that. Imagine you breed snakes or Tortoises or any reptile for that matter. You are a commercial interprize and you have hundreds/thousands of babies that need looking after, and cost money to house and feed. Do you A. sell them off ASAP (say after a couple of months so you know they are healthy before sale) or B. hold onto them for two/three years ? The answer is obvious. So why are so many of these "captive bred" animals sold to the trade at that age (2-3 years old) ????

[mark_w]

[scrambled legs]

its a tricky situation,

if you buy farmed slovenien (possibly wild caught) tortoises, you are giving them the money to buy more.

your one tortoise that you buy, they can buy a few more from the farms.

its not tricky to worm and flagyl a tortoise, it barely takes minutes so if this gentleman says he's done it, then he probably has.

you won't be doing anything wrong by closely examining the poop of your tortoise after it settles in and starts pooping. look for tiny white worms.
i
have a wild caught leopard tortoise and 2 captivebreds.

the wild one is terribly shy but the CB ones come to me where-ever i am in their room or outside.
personally i'd look for captivebred. pm me and i can mail u.k. breeder lists of most of the more common species of tortoise.

by buying captivebred, you are eliminating health problems and i'm talking about the important one..
###############################################

Andy highfield from the tortoise trust wrote this a while back.


We have recently had a highly disturbing number of reports of illness and
mortality in these Slovenian-origin imported Testudo hermanni. I would
absolutely stress that - at this time - nothing is officially confirmed, but I
do
feel that the indications are so worrying that it is now worth bringing this to
member's attention.

At least one very highly respected veterinary surgeon has told me that he
believes the symptoms are consistent with chelonian Herpes-virus infection. We
are receiving an ever increasing number of reports that in my opinion too are
also possible indicators of this.

Be careful if taking any of these in. I would now strongly recommend NEVER
mixing with any other tortoises (we know from past experience that the
condition may not fully develop for up to 10 years). There is, therefore, NO
safe
quarantine period.

For an outline of just how devastating and lethal this condition can be see:

http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/herpes.html

Please, please be careful here. Take this seriously. I believe that there
are sufficient indicators to warrant being ultra-cautious and assuming the worst
(unless proven otherwise). I would urge you to let other keepers know that
these animals may present a very serious risk indeed.

Andy Highfield

###############################################

its worth a thought before you give your money to tortoise importers.

Neil.
_________________
1.2.0. Geochelone pardalis
0.0.1. Testudo marginata
0.1.3. Kinixys homeana
crested geckos, rabbits, guinea pigs, gerbils, cat, jackapoo, poodle, a gazillion fish.

[mark68]

Yes Mark W. I read your post and am willing to believe that there maybe are genuine tortoise breeders in Slovenia. I own 15 tortoises and have kept them for many many years. I also for the last few years have been breeding them and currently have a few eggs in the incubator from some layed this week !

Tortoises, so I have been told and read can be (in parts of there range) very numerous. I have heard they are sometimes even used as (live) hardcore in buildings. Also that farmers in S/E Europe even collect them and put them into large pits in the ground to get rid of them, where they are seen to be damaging crops. Back in the nineteen seventies when tortoises were still exported legally w/c they used to be stupidly cheap, and now they are much more expensive. So I am afraid the temptation to catch a few and sell them must be very tempting. If you found only one tortoise an hour and got say £50 for it, that is, I think very easy money.

Tortoises while young in the wild face alot of dangers, and often have to face conditions that are very harsh. Consider for example that temperatures in the wild they endure a few months after they hatch in their first hibernation are more severe often than they would experience in the UK for example. Areas such as the Balkans can be alot colder than the UK. So I don't buy the idea that they need to be looked after by breeders for 2-3 years. If they were sold fairly consistently around a year of age then I might believe it. But three years is just too much !! Why also is it that so many people in the trade believe they are W/C ?

[mark_w]

[mark68]

Sure I would happily buy tortoises from somebody in Slovenia if I thought they were genuine. Of course it is too easy to set up a "breeding farm" as a front to sell mostly or all W/C. Not that I am suggesting that is what your contacts are doing. I thought part of the possible "paranoia" the TT have is caused by the fact that they say that they keep coming up against brick walls when they try to investigate "kosher" tortoise farms in Slovenia.

As it happens Mark, I am a Brit in Portugal doing something very similiar to what your German Friend is doing in Turkey. We currently have 20 very large outdoor enclosures for tortoises, water dragons etc With more being built later this year. So I would be very interested to know what the German is breeding. Just tortoises ?