Here are a few pictures taken from the tortoise farm in Slovenia recently. The farm has been in existence for a very long time, and its breeding stock of many thousands of tortoises are all registered with the relevant CITES authority. The farm has been inspected many times by various authorities, including governmental and non-governmental bodies.

This is just of the many breeding groups, the adult breeding stock are kept outside all year round and hibernate naturally.


A breeding female digging a nest, workers watch the females and mark the nest with a stick. After the female deposits the eggs, the eggs are removed and incubated.



Eggs being removed for incubation



One of the many banks of incubators were the eggs are incubated


A close up of eggs in the incubator



Just a few of the many thousands of baby tortoises hatched every year at the farm



I hope the above pictures are of some interest to people and go to some way in proving beyond all reasonable doubt that the tortoise farm exists, and indeed breeds tortoises. I will reiterate the point that all allegations made against this farm in respect of the legality of its activities have been rejected by all relevant government and non-governmental bodies. The UK CITES management authority, along with all other EU CITES management authorities recognise the legality of tortoise breed at this farm and issue all relevant CITES documentation.

When applying for an Article 10 you don't actually have to prove where the tort has come from to breed from it , just make sure it's chipped and then the A 10 in place here in the UK. Is it the same over there?

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Great post this one Chris...After years of asking for Slovenian farm photos on this forum, someone finally comes up with the goods...Its a shame that the high profile, pro-import tort dealers/traders (who frequent this forum) couldnt post pics like this in the past, when asked???...

A couple of questions please Chris- Has this farm got a name/address etc?...We're these photos easy enough to come by?...

I 'll come back to this thread a little later, time is not on my side at the moment...cheers...T.T.

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I posted some pictures way back at the beginning of the year of a Slovenian farm Paul... it could even be the same one as it looks very similar. Unfortunately I can't find the link now nor the original thread.

It also showed pictures of how the hatchlings are kept... in inside pens... with details of their diet. I'll try and trawl later but don't promise I'll find it again.

What I asked for at that time was pictures of how they're imported NOW... which nobody has ever posted. I just wish someone would so the myth of them being imported in poor conditions could be dispelled once and for all.

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Just had a closer look at the farm photos...

In the 1st paddock, I can roughly see approx. 40 adult torts, lets say that there are another 10, making it 50 torts per paddock...In the back of the paddock, theres a gate to the left, it appears to lead to another paddock of much the same number of shelters...So lets say there are another 50 adult females in this paddock too...We are up to 100 females?...If you look to both sides of the tortoise area, it appears to not contain any more torts?

Now for the incubators/eggs/trays etc....

There appears to be 3 long trays of eggs in each level inside the incubator, each tray looks like it has approx. 40 eggs...therefore each level could contain 120 eggs...Without including the 5 partial levels of eggs, it appears to have 45 full levels of eggs...This is without taking into account the incubator/cabinet, to the far left of the pic, or for that matter any other cabinets that may be full of eggs?...

My maths could come under scrutiny here, but there could be approx. 5400+ tort eggs in view...divide this by 100 adult torts...Thats 54 eggs laid for each tort???...

Of course all this is pure guess work, going by just what I think I can see???

I wish I could make out what the newspaper reads, attached to one of the incubators too ...T.T.

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They must have other 'paddocks' with more adults.

That being said they are interesting pictures. I was expecting a tortoise farm to look more 'half arsed' but they seem to be pretty organised. I assumed they would'nt incubate & would let nature takes it's course.

Yeah think we all would be very inerested in this Tina.

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i think i remember the post tina, and i deffinatley remember people asking for details of transportation. i think somebody said that they are packed into crates but each one has his own space as its seperated with dividers. and i dont remember any packing pics being posted.

We can ask v-max - he'll know about importation conditions (unless he scared stiff about Annes 'December' sales ban)

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