Why are you mixing speces? Bad news

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Posted by Susan on December 27, 2001 at 18:42:51:

In Reply to: Can anyone identify the tortoise in the foreground. posted by Justin on December 27, 2001 at 11:38:10:

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

Do not randomly mix species in collections

Mixed collections tend to have very poor overall survival rates. Keeping species (and geographical sub species) separately not only improves captive breeding ple, mixing 'spur-thighed' tortoises from Turkey with those from north Africa is definitely not a good idea; there is no doubt whatsoever that where this is done on a large scale the more delicate north African species suffer a much enhanced rate of disease and mortality. When kept separately there is no such problem. It is the view of the Tortoise Trust that a combination of adopting good general hygiene measures and maintaining only naturally sympatric species in close contact makes a major contribution to the safety of any collection. If tortoises from widely differing backgrounds are allowed to mix at random, there is no doubt that some will have no natural immunity to organisms carried normally by othsuccess but it drastically reduces the incidence of disease.

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: http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/disease.html : Do not randomly mix species in collections : Mixed collections tend to have very poor overall survival rates. Keeping species (and geographical sub species) separately not only improves captive breeding ple, mixing 'spur-thighed' tortoises from Turkey with those from north Africa is definitely not a good idea; there is no doubt whatsoever that where this is done on a large scale the more delicate north African species suffer a much enhanced rate of disease and mortality. When kept separately there is no such problem. It is the view of the Tortoise Trust that a combination of adopting good general hygiene measures and maintaining only naturally sympatric species in close contact makes a major contribution to the safety of any collection. If tortoises from widely differing backgrounds are allowed to mix at random, there is no doubt that some will have no natural immunity to organisms carried normally by othsuccess but it drastically reduces the incidence of disease.

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