To hatch one unexpected baby tortoise is universally viewed as a blessing; hatch two more and people start asking pointed questions, such as, “Are you running a tortoise sanctuary now?” and “Do you have the horniest tortoises in Yorkshire?”
The answer to both is “apparently”, and it’s chaos. We now have seven tortoises of which at least three are male and therefore – sorry for the gender essentialism, but it’s true – trouble. The two male adults have to be separated or they attack each other and we got confirmation that the previous baby, who hatched in 2024, is also male when we found him trying to have sex with his mother (it’s OK – she is 10 times his size).
