I’m Michael Scott and welcome to LeopardTortoises.com. This website has one very specific goal and that is to share current, real world, practical, information about leopard tortoises and their general husbandry in captivity. Within this website, I share information that I have gathered from numerous resources and my own personal experiences in raising leopard tortoises.  I acknowledge that there are many different opinions and ways to go about raising them, I simply am sharing what has worked for me and what has not worked for me.

I don’t claim to be an expert by any means but I do claim to read, research and learn with an open mind as much as possible on the topic of leopard tortoise husbandry in captivity. I have been raising reptiles for over 35 years as a hobby and have experience with Green Snakes, Rat Snakes, Burmese Pythons, Colombian Boas, Golden Tegus, Nile Monitors, Salvator Monitors, Green Iguanas, Sulcata tortoises and Leopard tortoises both typical (what most people call babocki) and South African.  I am currently raising 4 babcocki and 4 South African leopards that I acquired as hatchlings at various points in 2014 and chronicle my experiences raising them on this website.

The more I got into raising them, the more I realized is that there is a LOT of old, outdated and just plan wrong information out there being past on by hobbyists and breeders alike to new hatchling owners for example “you don’t need to provide drinking water in the enclosure because they get all the water they need from their food”… wrong. Every hatchling I have cared for will readily drink water when provided. Or “Leopard tortoises are a desert species so you need to keep their environment hot and dry”… again wrong. They are predominantly found in grasslands through out their range. With so many myths out there I feel compelled to share what I have learned so others don’t make the same mistakes I have.

I enjoy sharing my tortoise hobby with my two young children and teaching them to be stewards of the natural world. I’ve even managed to win over my very tolerant wife in this endeavor.  However, she still thinks that I spend too much time with the tortoises and she is probably right.