NotOnlyButAlsoPete
New Member
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2015
- Messages
- 4
Hello!
I'm a librarian living in Southern California. I work for the school that my children attend and I was asked if I could look after one of the classroom pets during the holiday break. I've been into herps for a while, but do not own any. I recently bought some hissing roaches to be library pets, and I had been considering something else. Then we met Zippy! Zippy is the 3rd grade pet. He is a Russian tortoise that I'm guessing is maybe 3-4 years old. We absolutely fell in love with him! Even my wife, who is usually not very interested in reptiles. Zippy lives in a glass aquarium. Well, that just wouldn't do. I built him a pretty sweet outdoor enclosure after doing some research. He stayed with us for about two weeks. Unfortunately, it was a little too cold here at night (40s) so Zippy stayed in his aquarium most of the time. However, given the stress, I think he appreciated it.
So, Zippy is now back at school, and he will likely return for the summer, but right now my wife and I see to be having tortoise withdrawals! Here we have this nice little enclosure outside, not to mention a HUGE backyard for supervised roaming, but no tortoise! When I was a child, I had an Eastern Box turtle that I gave away. I heard that he was still alive, and I attempted to track him down, but to no avail.
So here I am now, trolling tortoise forums, craigslist, pet stores and online herp shops looking to see if the perfect tortoise is out there for us. I'd really like to have one that will be very comfortable with Southern California weather and will be able to handle being outdoors year round (with some exceptions if needed, of course). I love the sulcata babies, the personality of the adults, etc., but I don't think I can handle the size!
Very happy to be here! Looking forward to learning and chatting with you all!
I'm a librarian living in Southern California. I work for the school that my children attend and I was asked if I could look after one of the classroom pets during the holiday break. I've been into herps for a while, but do not own any. I recently bought some hissing roaches to be library pets, and I had been considering something else. Then we met Zippy! Zippy is the 3rd grade pet. He is a Russian tortoise that I'm guessing is maybe 3-4 years old. We absolutely fell in love with him! Even my wife, who is usually not very interested in reptiles. Zippy lives in a glass aquarium. Well, that just wouldn't do. I built him a pretty sweet outdoor enclosure after doing some research. He stayed with us for about two weeks. Unfortunately, it was a little too cold here at night (40s) so Zippy stayed in his aquarium most of the time. However, given the stress, I think he appreciated it.
So, Zippy is now back at school, and he will likely return for the summer, but right now my wife and I see to be having tortoise withdrawals! Here we have this nice little enclosure outside, not to mention a HUGE backyard for supervised roaming, but no tortoise! When I was a child, I had an Eastern Box turtle that I gave away. I heard that he was still alive, and I attempted to track him down, but to no avail.
So here I am now, trolling tortoise forums, craigslist, pet stores and online herp shops looking to see if the perfect tortoise is out there for us. I'd really like to have one that will be very comfortable with Southern California weather and will be able to handle being outdoors year round (with some exceptions if needed, of course). I love the sulcata babies, the personality of the adults, etc., but I don't think I can handle the size!
Very happy to be here! Looking forward to learning and chatting with you all!