long john

indeed. They'll express themselves pretty quickly too but if a specific mutation is not present in the founder population, then it's not present, end of story (spontaneous mutations aside). You might get the same phenotype expressing eventually but the chance of the genetic causes of it being identical to overseas examples is very very small?

A vastly larger gene pool. Can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear?

Thankyou Repto

Hi all, ruminating on getting a tortoise/ tortoises and have wandered various overseas forums for information. Found it but crikey, a lot of it is contradictory and well, you know forums, separating the wheat from the chaff can be tricky when you don't know one from the other! So, this whole brumating/hibernation thing...I'm in Auckland, which I gather is a touch warm for this to occur naturally, leaving (I guess?) me the option of hibernating the tortoise in some sort of accuratly controlled fridge or bringing said tortoise in for the winter? Can somebody please explain the timing of such things; judging by what the OS forums suggest with regard to temperature, would the tortoise come out in October and back in May? With a suggested hibernation time of six or eight weeks, that seems to leave a lot of winter unaccounted for? Secondly, this pyramiding thing. Titanic clashes of egos on OS forums aside, is it a big deal? Obviously correct nutrition and access to UV are essential for all around wellbeing but a lot of stuff I've read indicates a humid environment when the tortoise is young is key to avoiding it? Given the tortoises for sale here seem to be a year or so old, is the die already cast when you purchase? Is it even an issue in N.Z? Lastly, the forumites seem divided on whether more than one tortoise is a good idea. If, when the tortoises get older and start to scrap/ molest each other, can they be separated by some judiciously placed logs or summing or are they committed fighters/ fornicators who'll find a way to get each other no matter my landscaping endeavours? Hopefully some of ewes can help-it's all very confusing Thanks, J