Hello from soggy Texas

I found your forum the other day and was surprised by the number of people on here. The posts are extremely informative. I'm a veterinarian and have been keeping tortoises for about 20 years and still feel like I know nothing. I currently have 2 sulcatas, 1 Mediterranean, 1 yellow foot, 1 Burmese brown, and 7 Indian stars. The Burmese is my favorite. He follows me around like a puppy. The stars are a headache but a challenge. I'm looking forward to reading all of the interesting posts.

Welcome to the forum. Glad to have you here.

Cldig said:

I found your forum the other day and was surprised by the number of people on here. The posts are extremely informative. I'm a veterinarian and have been keeping tortoises for about 20 years and still feel like I know nothing. I currently have 2 sulcatas, 1 Mediterranean, 1 yellow foot, 1 Burmese brown, and 7 Indian stars. The Burmese is my favorite. He follows me around like a puppy. The stars are a headache but a challenge. I'm looking forward to reading all of the interesting posts.

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A very warm welcome to the forum!

You'll definitely be of great help to us. (I have had a Greek tort I love, for 4.5 years).

All them Tortoises and no pictures ! Welcome to TFO !

Hello! Yes...let's see some pics

Welcome to TFO!!

Welcome to the Forum, Doc! I'm going to apologize right off the bat for any unfavorable comments you're going to see about veterinarians here on the Forum. Some of us have had real bad experiences with vets treating our tortoises and not really knowing what they're doing.

YOU, my new friend, are the best type of vet for us tortoise-keepers, because you have your own collection, so you've learned about husbandry and what it takes to keep them healthy.

I hope you don't mind, but in the future when illness questions come up about our tortoises, I'm going to send you a shout-out. What this means is I will post in the thread like this: @Cldig and the program will send you an alert for you to go to that thread and read it.

Also, if you would like to be listed under our regional vet list, you can send me a private message with your name, address, web address and phone number, and I'll add you to our list.

I'd love to see pictures of your tortoises. I kept the Manouria emys phayrei for many years up until a couple weeks ago when my tortoise partner took them home to San Diego with him. Now I only have 1.2 Manouria emys emys. You are correct. They are very puppy-like. And if you stand in one place too long, you may find one trying to take a bite out of your leg (to a Manouria tortoise, people aren't the food gods, they're the food).

Hello and Welcome. I too was going to give a shout out about the different vet comments you may read. Please don't take offense, we of course wouldn't be talking about you or all vets, just the ones that won't admit they don't know how to care for tortoise, but do it anyway and it usually turns to be bad treatment or even bad care and housing info.

Hi and welcome,
I am sure that with your background and experience you will have many very valuable contributions to make to the forum.
I look forward to hearing all about your torts.

Please don't hold back your vet comments on my account. I currently work for the US Dept of Ag. I work with a lot of private practice vets. Since taking this job I have been amazed at the number of bad vets that are out there.

I'm happy to comment about illnesses when they come up if I can. As many of you know bad husbandry is the root of most evils. I'm not up to speed on husbandry for all the different species.

Welcome to the forum

A woman who admits her limitations! I love you!

There's a vet here in my town that wants to do brain surgery on a hang nail. He is so overbearing and self important. And yet he knows NOTHING about tortoises. Then there's the vet I used to go to. He's very humble and quite readily admits he's not very educated about tortoises, but very willing to make phone calls to more knowledgeable vets across the country. Now my current vet, Dr. Sue Lynch, used to be the vet at our zoo. She was downsized when the zoo went private (at least I think that's what happened), and now she's a mobile vet here in town. I love her too.

I'm so glad you've joined our Forum, and I hope to see you post often. I'd love to see pictures of your tortoises, and I'm willing to share mine in pictures too.

Here I'll start the pictures .This is Harry having lunch .

...and here's my Manouria:

But don't let us intimidate you. We still want to see your pictures too. That's the fun of our forum. Seeing what other keepers have and are doing. I especially love seeing outdoor habitats.

Hello! Welcome!

We LOVE pix! With all the torts you have we must see them! Lol

Welcome to the Forum.

Welcome Doc, We had a fairly good mobile tortoise vet, She just disappeared about 2 years ago. This is Alex enjoying some cactus fruit, she is my youngest sulcata, she just laid some eggs. I believe they are infertile.

That looks like it's eating liver .