Wendy sits down with long-time keeper and founding member of the Kleinmanni Assurance Project (KAP), Ralph Till, for a deep dive into breeding the critically endangered Egyptian tortoise. Ralph shares decades of hands-on experience, including ideal female size and age, seasonal breeding behaviors, how to set up reliable nest boxes, incubation best practices, and what to expect from hatchlings during their first fragile month of life.
They also explore the origins and goals of KAP – an initiative built to establish genetically diverse assurance colonies across the United States following the ESA regulation changes. Ralph explains how KAP places animals, why meticulous record-keeping matters, and what it really takes for new keepers to responsibly join the effort.
If you’re interested in working with Egyptian tortoises, or just want a rare behind-the-scenes look at conservation-minded captive breeding, this is an episode you don’t want to miss.
Chapters
0:04 – Breeding Egyptian Tortoises
1:08 – Maturity and Egg Laying
2:46 – Breeding Season in Captivity
4:13 – Egg Incubation Techniques
8:11 – Hatchling Care
10:29 – Transitioning to Adult Care
11:52 – Getting Started with Breeding
16:16 – The Kleinmanni Assurance Project
20:35 – Advice for New Keepers
23:05 – Importance of Genetic Diversity
27:35 – Building a Supportive Community
For more info:
TTPG Group Discussion on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TTPGGroup/
Kleinmanni Assurance Project (KAP)
https://www.kleinmanniassuranceproject.com/
Turtle & Tortoise Preservation Group (TTPG)
https://ttpg.org/
Transcript provided by Auphonic and may contain errors.
Transcript
Wendy:
Thank you, Ralph Till, for joining me today to talk about breeding the Egyptian tortoise. We’re going to go over everything that you need to know from egg laying to hatchling care. So thanks again for joining me. Let’s first talk about does this species need to be kept and bred more in captivity?
Ralph:
Oh, that’s an easy one. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, their numbers are critically low. So yeah, the more we can produce, the better.
Wendy:
And there’s really not a ton of people working with them at this point, right?
Ralph:
There’s not a ton of them, no. There are some real good people that have some nice groups that they’ve taken the time like me to put together. And they are producing hatchlings, which is a great thing. So it’s getting there.
Wendy:
So what is their maturity and ready-to-be egg-laying? Is that size-based or age? What do you find for that?
Ralph:
Well…
Ralph:
In my world, and again, this is just based on my experiences.
Wendy:
Right.
Ralph:
I like the females to weigh at least 300 grams.
Wendy:
Okay.
Ralph:
Okay. The bigger, the better. Typically, a female doesn’t weigh 300 grams until she’s five years old or older. So that’s my magic number, five years, 300 grams.
Wendy:
Okay.
Ralph:
Now, there’s always exceptions to that.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Ralph:
You know, I’ve had eight-year-old females that weighed 275 grams, or four-year-old females that weighed 350 grams. But still, I like to wait until they’re five years to allow the animal to biologically mature.
Wendy:
Okay.
Ralph:
And it has served me well, let’s put it that way.
Wendy:
Do you know when, like, breeding and egg laying occur in the wild?
Ralph:
Actually, the cooler weather is the breeding season.
Wendy:
Okay. So not like peak summer heat and all that.
Ralph:
Okay. The cooler weather is the breeding season. And then what will happen is the nature adapts. Okay. If you hatch an egg in the dead of summer when it’s 99 degrees, that little tiny baby six-gram hatchling is going to dry up. like a potato chip before it ever gets out of the ground. So they typically wait until it’s a little bit cooler and they have a little bit of rain, and that’ll promote the hatching of the babies, and it gives them a little bit of a chance to survive. And that’s Mother Nature.
Ralph:
What I do in captivity is… For some reason, about October 1st, give or take a week, my males all start to become very active. Now, I’m sure it’s a, my theory is it’s a barometric pressure change that they can sense. Okay. And the daylight, the day start getting a little shorter, all that. I think they sense that. And they start seeking out females. And so, to me, the middle of October into November is peak breeding season for the Egyptians.
Wendy:
So you’ll start pairing them up?
Ralph:
Right now. Okay. I’m right in the throes of breeding season right now with all my…
Wendy:
And how many eggs do they lay?
Ralph:
The average clutch is two.
Wendy:
Okay.
Ralph:
But I’ve had several females lay four eggs.
Wendy:
Wow.
Ralph:
I mean, a couple times a year, even.
Wendy:
So they will multi-clutch?
Ralph:
Oh, yeah. Gosh. And that’s part of, I think, our captive environment is very much conducive to that. You know, the reserves are there. The food is there. Everything is there. I’ve had one female produce six clutches in a season.
Wendy:
Whoa, that’s amazing.
Ralph:
Yeah, crazy.
Wendy:
She’s eating good.
Ralph:
And I’ve had others that have produced three clutches a year of one egg each, you know?
Wendy:
So tell me how you set up the eggs for incubation and how long does it usually take?
Ralph:
So I, well, back up just for a minute. Sure. I use little nest boxes. Again, all those little buckets that I bought at the dollar store, I also, if you turn them back over and put them on their back, they serve as great nest boxes. And I fill them with just plain cheap topsoil. It’s clean. I grade it because the stuff you buy today always has pieces of plastic.
Wendy:
Plastic. Yeah.
Ralph:
But almost like a chicken, you know, when the time has come, the female will just go in there and dig her way down. And I spray it to keep it moist. And they’ll lay, you know, anywhere from one to four eggs, cover it up, walk away. I take those eggs, I clean them, and I set them up on either perlite or vermiculite, either one, whatever I happen to have handy. and put them in the incubator, you know, anywhere from 86 to 89 degrees. And it takes on average about 85 days for the eggs to hatch.
Wendy:
Are they temperature sex dependent or at least that we’ve figured out?
Ralph:
It’s a science that everybody, anybody who tells you they have it mastered is, well, fill in the blanks. i’ve hatched i’ve incubated at 89 degrees and produced males i’ve i’ve incubated at 85 and produced females i’ve tried two incubators two you know different temperatures and it it’s whatever comes out is whatever comes out i’ve yet to actually unlock the the secret so is.
Wendy:
Your incubation medium dry or if you’re.
Ralph:
Doing vermiculite or do you mix it.
Wendy:
With water at all or.
Ralph:
Just yeah i have found that if i try to wet it at all it’ll cause the eggs to rot now i do a cup of water inside you know try to keep the humidity up around 70 percent inside the incubator but i don’t i don’t put any i don’t put any water in the in the.
Wendy:
And they don’t need any sort of diapause at all?
Ralph:
No, no, no, no. Go straight into the incubation process. And then you can tell, you can watch them. You know, I mean, generally within three, four days, they will chalk up, you know, they’ll get like a bright chalky white, you know.
Wendy:
Spot, yeah.
Ralph:
It’s generally, you’re good, man. It’s just a waiting game. I said 85, 90 days. I mean, I’ve had them hatch as early as like 66 days. Wow. It goes long as 110, 112 days. Why, I don’t know. I’ve had the smallest egg hatch the biggest hatchling. The biggest egg hatched the littlest hatchling. I did have twins one time.
Wendy:
Oh, wow.
Ralph:
Sadly, they died. I mean, at the same. The egg never hatched. And so I opened the egg and it was twins, but they were deceased.
Wendy:
So once they do hatch, do you leave them in the incubator for a while?
Ralph:
Yeah, well, I’ll leave them in the incubator for several days.
Wendy:
Okay.
Ralph:
But then I have another incubator that’s set up at a little bit lower temperature, and I’ll set them up in there generally on paper towels, dampened paper towels. In my case, probably 99.9% of the hatchlings do not have a yolk sac.
Wendy:
Oh, wow.
Ralph:
It’s already been absorbed.
Ralph:
But the umbilicus opening is still there, so it’s got to close up. So I keep them on a damp paper towel. Sometimes I put a little bit of sphagnum moss just to give them a little something to hide under. And a little cup. They always hide. I can’t emphasize that enough with Egyptians. They love to hide, especially little ones. And I’ll keep them in that incubator for probably a month.
Wendy:
Okay.
Ralph:
Until I’m sure that they’re going to eat well and they’re moving around.
Wendy:
And you’re offering them food in there too?
Ralph:
After about three or four days, I’ll start offering a little food. But yeah, I’ll feed them right in there. Usually when you see them start eating, it’s like, all right.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Ralph:
And soak them. You know, I give them a little soaking to make sure they’re hydrated.
Wendy:
So once they do come out of the incubator, where do they go from there?
Ralph:
They’re just like the big boys then.
Wendy:
Okay.
Ralph:
I put in, obviously with all hatchlings, I can keep a bunch of them together.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Ralph:
But I’ll set them up in an enclosure that’s very similar to the one that the adults are in, although I have plastic tubs in them. And so I can put, you know, as many as I want in these plastic tubs. But again, I’ll put, after the month, I use the same substrate that the adults are on, the same hide that the adults are on. I mean, they go, they’re little baby adults from the time they’re like a month old.
Wendy:
And same diet and all that.
Ralph:
Same diet. Obviously, I chop it up a little bit, but in the wild, they eat the same stuff. They don’t have baby food. Yeah.
Wendy:
Are you soaking them regularly? And I didn’t ask, do you soak your adults too?
Ralph:
Every couple weeks.
Wendy:
Okay.
Ralph:
Yeah. I mean, I’m not that, I’m not obsessed with soaking them too much. I have a whole different theory on that. You know, I think if you soak them too much, It forces them to evacuate.
Wendy:
They poop before they’re ready.
Ralph:
Yeah. And that’s kind of my theory here. So I don’t soak them twice.
Wendy:
They have a very long, slow digestive time for a reason. And yeah.
Ralph:
I mean, I always keep water in the enclosure. Every single enclosure has a dish of water, so they can always go in there. Not that they ever do, but they can take a sip of water or sit in a water dish and poop. you know, if that’s what they need to do.
Wendy:
So you’re keeping them together until they’re like sub-adult and then they go into individual…
Ralph:
Well, typically until they’re… Well, my rule here was I never released a hatchling until it was at least three months old.
Wendy:
That’s a good rule. Yeah.
Ralph:
And by that time, these probably doubled or tripled the size. They grow pretty fast with little tiny ones. and and if you’re going to have a problem it generally happens within that first month so i don’t want to sell something that’s two weeks old and have it bouncing around in a deli cup and get stuffed into a whatever yeah.
Wendy:
I mean any kind of travel i’m sure is.
Ralph:
Stressful for them and.
Wendy:
You don’t want to stress a.
Ralph:
Six gram tortoise or so typically i don’t i don’t ever release anything until it’s at least three months old at the absolute minimum. And actually, I like to wait until they’re about six months old. And they’ll stay together all that time.
Wendy:
Okay.
Ralph:
Yeah. You can actually keep them together until they’re probably about a year old.
Ralph:
And of course, you don’t want to overcrowd them. You know, you need to, as they grow, you need to split the groups up. But, you know, I’m looking at right here in front of me. I have a group of eight or nine of them that are probably six or eight months old that are all together.
Wendy:
So if someone really wants to get started breeding this species, where do they start? Like, and maybe we can touch on KAP a little bit with this too.
Ralph:
Well, it’s a commitment. And I guess let’s, let me just touch right in cap. Sure. And that’ll kind of explain the new, the new, the new goals, the new values. Because of the ESA ruling, we weren’t allowed to sell them anymore. Okay. And, and there’s some other factors involved. And I, I felt that what a shame that, that all these animals are out here and we’re not allowed to, in the eyes of some. legally produce more right so so i i kind of came up with this idea of trying to create a network where we could we could we could produce animals and place them with individuals like-minded individual not just anybody right right like-minded individuals for the sole purpose of preserving the species. That’s the only reason we do it is to save the species because the government in their own ways has taken away the ability to make any kind of money off of, But now I didn’t want to just do it with anybody. So I was kind of selective with who I brought into the, how to sell the idea first, you know, and a handful of people bought into it. And, you know, are you sure? I kept saying, are you sure? Because there’s no money to be made here, you know?
Wendy:
Right.
Ralph:
And so we put together the group, the KAP group. And what we’re trying to do is bring other people into, I guess, our way of thinking, for lack of a better explanation, that our primary goal is to save the species. And in order to do that, we have to have assurance colonies throughout the whole country, not just me. Right. My house burns down and everything burns down with it. you know, everything’s gone. Yeah. So, so we need other people that can get, fill in, fill my, I don’t say fill my role, but just so the process keeps going uninterrupted. Right. And, and so I, I, I, I reached out to these people, we created KAP, we came up with a plan and, and, and now we’re enacting the plan. And that plan is reaching out to others whom that we feel are best suited to follow our values.
Ralph:
And that, Do we own the species? No. If you have 10 Egyptian tortoises of your own, good for you. Okay? But if you want to join KAP and take advantage of the network and organization that we have put together, you’ve got to kind of follow our rules, so to speak. And surprisingly enough, it’s working pretty good.
Wendy:
That’s great. That’s good to hear.
Ralph:
And we’ve been able to place some animals in some key places, different states. It’s been amazing the amount of people that have come out of the woodwork that have two or three animals and they don’t know what to do with them. They can’t sell them. We’ve had people that said, you know, my male died or my female died or something like that. Had it 10 years, you know. And some people are donating animals to the project. And I don’t mean donating to me.
Wendy:
To the, yeah, the whole project.
Ralph:
And as we have different people placed all over the country, maybe it’s best that your male goes to this guy in California or your female
Ralph:
goes to Minnesota or it goes to Massachusetts or something like that. And we can legally gift animals anywhere as long as we have the documentation to support it. And we have created that documentation. so that’s that’s the plan and.
Wendy:
That sounds great i mean it’s always difficult when you pull money out of the equation i feel like the people that you’re left with are the people who really truly care about the animals themselves and i know you are working hard to try and make sure that you have disparate bloodlines and you know, I don’t know if you guys are looking into genetic testing at all.
Ralph:
We’re looking into it, but it’s a difficult path, the genetic testing.
Wendy:
And ridiculously expensive.
Ralph:
And ridiculously expensive.
Wendy:
Yes.
Ralph:
What we really need to know is we’re trying to form a baseline in this country. You know, prior to KAP, there was only a few people in the country that produced large volumes of Egyptian tortoises and sold them, me being one of them. So I don’t want to find out that somebody in Tennessee, I’ll just use that as an example, he wants to get involved in KAP, let’s just say, Pennsylvania, pick a state. and it turns out that the animals that he has are already directly related to the animals that i have right so hopefully somebody else within cap has animals that came from an entirely different source now all of it is based on hearsay although it is based on record keeping all of it is people being honest with us but if we could do some genetic testing at least we can find a slight variance between this group and that group.
Wendy:
And you could look at, like, coefficients of inbreeding between two individuals and see ancestor loss and all that type of stuff that, you know, is readily available for dogs, but not for tortoises.
Ralph:
Yeah, we haven’t. I mean, we’re working on it. And we’ve had a few people that have stepped up to assist us, but we don’t have anything definitively yet.
Wendy:
Feels like you need to get a college really interested in it.
Ralph:
Yeah but it’s it’s money you know everything is money yeah so what we’re doing is is anything we do quite frankly is self-funded yeah and.
Wendy:
Sequencing a genome is not cheap.
Ralph:
Yeah and and and we we need to be a little cautious you know we had we just we thought maybe we’ll sell t-shirts and we’ll sell anything but with the 4d rule hanging over our head i don’t know how that would be interpreted by the powers to be yeah.
Wendy:
I’m sure your record keeping has to be meticulous.
Ralph:
Your record keeping has to be you know if somebody makes a donation and you send them two animals well right yeah you know yeah that’s like a sale i mean who are you kidding you know right so you have to be careful about that stuff.
Wendy:
Yeah, it’s tricky. So, let’s say someone has kept tortoises before. They kind of know what they’re doing. They really like Egyptians, and they kind of want to get into either keeping or breeding them. What’s some advice that you would give them?
Ralph:
Well, if they’ve been keeping other species, and they have a good track record with other species, we’ll talk to you.
Wendy:
Okay.
Ralph:
You know? Everybody has to start somewhere. I get that. And with the laws being what they are, it diminishes the opportunity for a wannabe new keeper to acquire any animals.
Wendy:
Okay?
Ralph:
So talk to us. But don’t tell me, I’m going to get on my horse a little bit here.
Wendy:
Go for it.
Ralph:
Don’t tell me that you have three years of breeding geckos and you know everything there is. And I’m deserving of, you know, six Egyptian tortoises. You know, I’m sorry. But if you’ve been working with tortoises for a long time, especially smaller ones, and, you know, I think I could be a valuable partner to the program, then we would talk to you.
Wendy:
Yeah. And that’s not gatekeeping at all. What that is, is caring about the animals. You’re working with a limited population to begin with. They are small. They’re fragile. Every single, you know, and I’m not trying to say that the common animals aren’t as important, but every single one of them, just the importance is greater because of all the factors around it. So you don’t want just anyone taking them and, like you said, putting them in a 10-gallon tank with a 200-watt heat bulb.
Ralph:
Yeah. just something to bring up just to, I know I’ve mentioned this before. When the ESA ruling was first proposed, I mean, it’s been proposed for years, but when it finally came to fruition, we had a write-in. We were asked to write in some comments, and we did some research, several of us. And we found out that the private sector, within a three-year period, produced a little over 500 hatchlings in the United States. Okay? That’s pretty good. 500 hatchlings in the private sector. Our competition was the entire zoo network of the United States. And in that same period, they produced three.
Wendy:
And that’s what people say. They say, well, you know, why do private keepers need to keep them? Why can’t zoos do this? That’s why.
Ralph:
Yeah. And that’s why. That’s exactly why. And it was a bit of an eye opener. So that was another reason for doing what we do with cats. And there are people that are going to start out with hatchlings. I get it. And it’s a time-consuming program. This doesn’t happen overnight. We’re talking tortoises, you know.
Ralph:
I know they’re not like rosy boas. You could breed every six months. You know, they’re…
Wendy:
Right. You’re looking at five years minimum.
Ralph:
You’re looking at five years minimum. So it’s a commitment. And the plan is that after your five years, you produce a few hatchlings. Now, they are technically your animals, but the hope is that you’ll take some of your hatchlings and, do like we are, give them to somebody else within the network that’ll keep doing the same thing.
Wendy:
So that way you have groups coming up that are unrelated or less related.
Ralph:
Either or. Either or. Yeah. And who knows? It may wind up at a point where they’re all related. Yeah.
Wendy:
And they probably somewhat are. I mean, you have to think about the original animals that come in. That’s already a bottleneck that you started with. So you’re only kind of going down that bottleneck. So trying to find diversity anywhere you can is definitely something to shoot for.
Ralph:
And that’s the key with the genetic testing is trying to find as much diversity as we can. And that’s why back to, I said earlier, where we asked people where these animals came from. I don’t care where they came from. It’s not who owned them. It’s the idea is that we can track their history for genetics. That’s what we want. That’s the important factor.
Wendy:
So for anyone who’s really interested in Egyptian tortoises and looking to get into breeding them, if you have experience with other tortoises, you can find the Kleinmanni Assurance Project. It’s actually kleinmanaiassuranceproject.com on the web. And I think there’s a contact link there. There’s also information on care, the genetics program, what you guys are working on. And I would suggest that as a place to start if you’re really interested in breeding. Anything that we missed that you want to go real quick?
Ralph:
Well, the one thing I want to say is that when this project came together, I needed people, you know, I needed people to be on board. And, and I said, okay, I, quite frankly, there are people I sold animals to. I mean, that’s how it all started. And I explained to them what I had in mind and would they be interested? How I found these people, the TTPG, that’s, that’s how it all started. And, and the TTPG gave me a platform to, to be able to sell it and, and support it. So I’m very grateful for that. One of the requirements, is that you’re a TTPG member?
Wendy:
Oh, I didn’t know that. That’s great.
Ralph:
Yeah. Yeah.
Wendy:
So the Climenae Assurance Project is exactly what the TTPG is all about. Like one of the core tenets of the TTPG is to create assurance colonies for all species. And not only are you doing that, but you’re doing it in a thoughtful, like, you’re doing it the right way. So I really love to see that. I saw your presentation at the conference last year, and I was just blown away.
Ralph:
Well, we’re trying. You know, we want to do it the right way. I know the TTPG has the CPP program.
Wendy:
Which is awesome. Yeah, anyone who doesn’t know what that is, the CPP is the Colonial Propagation Program. And it’s a benefit to all members of the TTPG. It furthers the group’s mission of establishing assurance colonies. Members can either donate or receive species through the program. And I know, I don’t think any Egyptians have been donated through the program, but I know that the CPP has helped arrange placements. Is that right?
Ralph:
Yes.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Ralph:
Yeah. To my knowledge, no animals have been donated. I didn’t want to put the onus on whoever is directing that to place them. And quite frankly, we’re being a little bit selfish. We want to know where they are. Yeah.
Wendy:
And you need to build up your network before you start sending them everywhere. Yeah.
Ralph:
And, you know, we’re not the enemy. The first thing people thought, well, they’re going to try and confiscate my animals or Who the hell am I? I can’t confiscate your animal.
Ralph:
We’re asking you to help us so we can help you and just perpetuate it. Keep it going.
Wendy:
Yeah. And if you have a lone female who’s been sitting by herself for six years, maybe reach out.
Ralph:
Reach out. Exactly. Exactly. We want to help you because you in turn can help us. And then it helps the species. And I can’t emphasize enough. they’ve taken the dollar off the table so nobody is getting rich doing this.
Wendy:
No the people who are left working with Egyptians are the people who love Egyptians and care about them and want to see a future for them yeah, alright well this was fantastic thank you so much for joining me today Ralph for our listeners be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss our next episode I really appreciate you taking the time today I.
Ralph:
Appreciate it also. Thank you for the time and allowing me to talk about my favorite species on the planet, the Egyptian tortoise, and to talk about KAP, a program that’s near and dear in my heart. So I appreciate it very much.
Wendy:
Awesome. Thank you.