Ornates

We were given our first Ornate at our very first OCHS meeting. We weren't sure on sexing ornates but were told they thought it was a boy so "he's" been housed with our three-toe Max for the last 6 months. We acquired another ornate the week before the 4th of July and placed the two ornates together giving Max his own tank. Well....we now know that our little 'boy' was a girl. Because the one we just got was definetely a boy. They have 'taken care of business' as we put it in this house (LOL) several times so we are waiting to see if we end up with any eggs. I am going to try to place a pic in this of their mating we were able to catch on camera. Wish us luck!


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Exciting news! Have fun getting ready to incubate the eggs if you get some! We'll look forward to updates . . .

Edit: BTW, I was told that the red eyes indicate the male, while brown eyes indicate the female.

The most dependable way to sex our native (three-toed and ornate) box turtles (adults) is to look for the concave depression on the back portion of the
plastron.

we are learning....there isn't a whole lot of information out there about it so we kind of learning as we go. We did recently read the information about the eye color but also read that it also isn't very reliable.

Eye color is usually, but not always, reliable.
Even the mounting behavior is not always dependable.
At times, males will mount and attempt to mate with other males.

If you're sure your female is a female and the mating behavior has ceased, be sure to put her on a soil substrate that's at least a foot deep.