DECEMBER 17TH 2009-Garden State Tortoise has a new layout! I have basically dedicated this site to my number 1 passion, The Western Hermann's Tortoise (Testudo hermanni hermanni). This is a very poorly understood and extremely rare species of tortoise and due to my extensive work with breeding and keeping them, I have made the choice to make some changes on here. Have no fear though, I am still working with plenty of other species and information will continue to be available, as well as updates on available hatchlings. Please be patient as some links may be broken. Please report any problems to chrisleone@gardenstatetortoise.com Happy Holidays! DECEMBER 7TH 2009-Major changes being made to this site, be patient! OCTOBER 30TH 2009- Halloween 2009 is tomorrow so Happy Halloween to all! All turtles are sold out for 2009 except for the very last 2 Blanding's turtles of '09, grab them while you can! We do now have a few Eastern Hermann's Tortoise (Testudo hermanni boettgeri) hatchlings available for sale. The majority of our adult tortoises and turtles are dissapearing for winter so this marks the official end of the 2009 season. We will however, have select tortoise hatchlings for sale throughout the winter so check back often for that as well as many changes about to take place on this site. SEPTEMBER 14TH 2009-As the 2009 season comes to an end, we are happy to announce that pretty much all 2009 hatchlings have been sold. Spotted and Florida Box Turtle hatchlings are available in very limited numbers and Eastern and Western Hermann's tortoises are currently incubating. The days are still warm so the animals are active, in a month or so things will really be winding down. AUGUST 31ST 2009-The 2009 season is now winding down and almost all of our 2009 hatchlings are sold out! Blanding's Turtles and European Pond Turtles are still available as well as Turkish Greek Tortoises (ibera) and only a few more Spotted and Florida Box Turtles will be available when the last couple of clutches hatch. Get what you need now! Check the available page for details.. JULY 23RD 2009-North American Wood Turtle hatchlings are now available along with more Florida Box Turtle hatchlings! JULY 6TH 2009-Florida Box Turtle hatchlings are now available again! New Featured Video on the main page of a Blanding's Turtle nesting check it out! JUNE 30TH 2009-Eggs from just about every species we breed here are now incubating. It's turning out to be a great season and plenty of healthy captive bred offspring will be available in the coming weeks and months. Keep checking back, right now we have just 1 baby eastern box turtle left for sale until the other clutches hatch. See the available page. JUNE 18TH 2009-I just added the Pancake Tortoise photo page, go to the gallery and check it out! Plenty of eggs are incubating right now and in the coming weeks countless turtles and tortoises will be laying even more eggs, stay tuned! JUNE 13TH 2009-Florida Box Turtles are now sold out until more eggs hatch. We have one Dalmatian Hermann's left until more eggs hatch and Testudo ibera eggs are now cooking! JUNE 12TH 2009-Check the available section, we now have Florida box turtles and Dalmatian Hermann's tortoises for sale! Also eggs are being laid by most of our species. We are happy to announce that we are now working with Pancake Tortoises again! A photo gallery for this species will be added shortly. JUNE 3RD 2009-Check out the new European Pond Turtle photo collection in the Gallery! We're very excited to be working with this species. JUNE 2ND 2009-Well it's June and that means egg laying season is finally here! Florida and Gulf Coast Box Turtle eggs are now in the incubators as well as Western Hermann's and plenty of our other species are getting ready to lay. This is always the most exciting part of the year. Eastern and Dalmatian Hermann's hatchlings are sold out for now but plenty more will be available as summer goes on. Please check out my new site dedicated to Western Hermann's Tortoises here: www.gardenstatetortoise.com/hermanni.html MAY 26TH 2009-Eastern Hermann's Tortoise hatchlings now available! Several females of the species we breed here are now carrying eggs, stay tuned. MAY 17TH 2009-BRAND NEW PHOTOS ADDED! Check out the gallery, tons of new photos of our animals have been put up. MAY 15TH 2009-All NEW updates! New Addition coming to this site check the main page for a link! New featured video up as well as new videos on the video page! I will be updating this site frequently now that the 2009 season is in effect! Florida Box turtle and Eastern Hermann's tortoise eggs cooking right now! Stay tuned. MARCH 31ST 2009-NEW Featured Video added! Check it out on the main page, this time we're showing some of our Blanding's turtles breeding! MARCH 30TH 2009-Winter is officially over here in NJ and I am extremely excited for the 2009 season! Most of the North American turtles have woken up outside from their long, cold winter rest and have been seen basking, exploring and even breeding already! Several Eastern and Dalmatian Hermann's tortoises have laid their first of probably several clutches in the last week and things are looking promising. With a little luck, a few new species that I have taken on will produce young and those will be available in late summer. Florida Box Turtles are one of the new species I am working with now, just to give you an idea. I will be working on this site a bit more now and will be adding some new photos, videos and some other things in the coming months so please check back. Happy spring! JANUARY 20TH 2009-It's been a while so let me start off by saying Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Since it is winter the majority of our animals over here have been fast asleep with the exception of seeing Blanding's turtles occasionally under the ice moving about sluggishly. Thanks to this I have been able to mainly focus on my book on Hermann's tortoises. I'm just about finished with it and will be getting it published hopefully within the next month or so and just maybe it'll be out by Spring. I'm excited about it and hope that Hermann's tortoise keepers will find it useful. Stay tuned for news on that. I'm also hoping to add new videos and photos to this site as well as some new caresheets in the next few weeks if time permits. NOVEMBER 27TH 2008-Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! NOVEMBER 24TH 2008-I'm proud to announce that we have a photo in the new 2009 Tortoise Calendar! It's available for only $13 through www.tortoiseforum.org, order yours today! NOVEMBER 20TH 2008-I've got a few turtles listed for sale on faunaclassifieds.com and tortoiseforum.org, check it out and send an e-mail if you're interested. It's super cold here now, nights are in the 20s and the days barley hit 40. Blanding's turtles can be seen moving slowly under the ice in our big pond, it's a site to see. NOVEMBER 10TH 2008-We had a few warm days last week and a lot of rain. It brought a lot of the turtles out and I even observed some of our blanding's turtles breeding. Other than that, things are somewhat quiet over here with the exception of the animals we are raising indoors. If only Spring wasn't so far off! OCTOBER 31ST 2008-Happy Halloween 2008!! OCTOBER 22ND 2008- I am now specifically looking for the following turtles, Adult Chinese Box Turtles, Adult European Pond Turtles and Adult Southern Painted Turtles. If you have any you're looking to sell/trade please contact me through this website. Thanks! OCTOBER 5TH 2008-Things are beginning to wind down over here at Garden State Tortoise as fall sets in. The nights have dropped down into the 40s and the days barely have been hitting 70 at all. The turtles and tortoises are getting the last of their feedings for the season this week and after that they will prepare for hibernation which begins sometime in November. SEPTEMBER 12TH 2008-I am now officially sold out of my 2008 turtle and tortoise offspring. Thank you to everyone who bought from me this season! Everything went so fast! SEPTEMBER 8TH 2008-I'm almost completely sold out of all 2008 animals. SEPTEMBER 1ST 2008-Wow it's September already....that being said, I only have a few turtles and tortoises left for sale. AUGUST 11TH 2008-Turtles have been selling fast. Thanks to everyone who has been buying. JULY 30TH 2008-Turtles are now available! Check the availability page to see what's going on. July 27th 2008-Northern Diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin terrapin) and Spotted Turtles (Clemmys guttata) are now starting to hatch. Our tortoises are still laying eggs. Things are good. JULY 23RD 2008-I'm happy to announce that our eggs have started to hatch. So far we have some Western Hermann's Tortoises (Testudo hermanni hermanni) and North American Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) breaking through their eggs as I type this. Stay tuned. JULY 7TH 2008-Our incubators are basically entirely full from our turtles and we are still anticipating more eggs. The tortoises have just started laying with the exception of the Western Hermann's tortoises that laid back in mid Spring. We expect hatchlings to begin emerging from their eggs during the last week of July, through the month of August and into September. It's been a slow year for our wood turtles with only a few females nesting but I have heard from many others who are having the same experience this season. Still we did get some eggs and a small number of wood hatchlings will be available. Speaking of available, check out the availability page to find out what's incubating now.I just updated it. Also,unfortunately I still cannot get the forums back up and running because of the spammers and I have not been able to find someone who can help me get rid of them. I apologize again and I promise they will eventually be back up. -Chris JUNE 15TH 2008- More eggs are being laid every few nights and I have noticed that a few more of our spotted turtles are now gravid. So far only a few of our wood and box turtles have laid eggs, but I am hoping the rest will lay in the next few weeks. No blanding's, mud or painted turtles have nested but I do know some females are gravid. With the horribly cold Spring we had, it's hard to judge how good of a season we'll have this year. None of the tortoises have laid except for the western hermann's that laid back in April and early May. I do know that plenty of breeding has been going on and I suspect that the other tortoise species will nest come July. Most of our terrapins have nested with only a few females left to go, but the ones that have not laid yet may still be too young. All in all, I'm looking forward to what this season brings. -Chris JUNE 9TH 2008- *UPDATE*-The 2008 season is now in full effect and several of our turtles and tortoises have started nesting! Eggs are already in the incubators and we are anticipating many more. Be sure to check the available page to see what's incubating right now!Also: I'm sure many of you have noticed that the forums have been disabled. This is because the amount of spammers attacking our boards has become too much to deal with at this time. I have been actively seeking help from the board support team, but they have proven to be very difficult to deal with. I assure all of you that it will get taken care of but with nesting season upon us, things have become quite busy around here. If anyone knows how to properly rid spammers please contact me at chrisleone@gardenstatetortoise.com. Until then, please keep checking back to see what's going on here as our incubators fill up!-Chris
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