How Did You Get Into Tortoises/Turtles?

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Vegas_Leopard

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Hey Tortoise Forum, what's up?

I thought I'd ask the members of Tortoise Forum on how they got hooked into Tortoises/Turtles. If there's already a thread based on this accept this as my apology. Any who, lets hear your story. I'll start of with mine..

I first got hooked into tortoises/turtles when I was younger around 6-7 years old. I lived in California back in the day & when I was living there, there was a pet store up the block that my pops & I would drive up to every week because he owned a lot of exotic birds. I would go there & look around the store checking out nasty tarantulas, centipedes & every other nasty insect lol. I remember looking over the counter seeing turtles, hatching Red-Ear Slider for $3 each. On my 8th birthday my parents surprised me with the best gift & they were two of those Red-Ear Sliders, I didn't have a clue on how to take care of them. I did what the owner of the pet store said to do, keep them in clean water & feed them, they eventually died.. I was lacking the knowledge what can I say lol. I owned about 6 of them, I eventually got over the fact that I couldn't take care of them. And then one day I was in front of my house climbing our tree with my younger brother & at the highest I could climb I spotted something walking down the street, didn't know what it was. I ran over to see what it was & it turned out to be my first tortoise, a California Desert Tortoise. Ever since then I've been hooked on tortoises, rarely turtles. They look cool, but I'm not into aquatics. I'm 19 years old next month & have been attached to these animals since. It's my forever favorite animal. :D
 

mctlong

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I grew up around tortoises. My grandmother kept many, many torts in her back yard, mostly California desert tortoises. She wasn't a breeder. She had a soft spot in her heart for tortoises and everytime someone found a wild tort hit by a car or mauled by a dog, she'd take it in. She started raising torts when she was a small child and some of those torts stayed with her throughout her life and outlived her. She passed away at 83 years old and some her torts were as old or older than she was.

A couple years ago, I saw a sad little Russian in Petco and it reminded me of my grandmother and I thought, what would she do if she saw this sad, malnourished little tortoise? :shy: I named him Indy. And thats how I became a tort person.
 

Weloveourtortoise

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I have always loved torts and turts. A few years ago I wanted to get a pet that I could have at my condo complex. my cousin had had a turt and always felt so sad for it because the aquarium so small and not get a lot of room to swim, and could not really handle or be with. So when researching I knew I wanted a tort. Did more research and found Russians would be ideal for my situation. Went to Petco and have been in love ever since.
 

dmmj

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I got my first one at 8 (still alive BTW) now almost 30 years later I have a bunch I can not say what specifically attracted them to me. but if I had to guess I would say I liked their look, they look like they know a secret, and they want to tell someone but they can't. It was a RES I bought it at a pet store and I got a 20 gallon tank I quickly realized that it was to small for it, since I lived in calif and had nice weather all year round I bought a kiddie pool after about a month and moved him outside. Since then In my neighborhoods I was quickly known as the turtle guy. So I always had some dropped off from time to time.
 

reptylefreek

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My family owned a pet store since I was born and we always had animals dropped on our door step. One day when I was 16 some one brought in a sulcata and said they didn't want it anymore. About a week before that we also had a leopard dropped off. I snuck the sulcata home and looked up a little info. The leopard was given to a friend. I fell in love with that sully but she sadly died about a year later. From that point on I knew I wanted another, and I wanted to do it right this time. So now present time I have my baby sully Marlin and just recently got that leo back that was also dropped off. It just has to be fate...
 

Kymiie

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I never knew tortoises could be pets, to be honest its cruel they should be in the wild, but he seems alot better with me rather than him being cooped up with others in a little cage in a petshop! So i got him when i saw his wikkle face and thought awwwwwwwwww!
Would do anything for him now xx
 

tortoisenerd

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I've been fascinated with tortoises ever since I was a little kid. I waited for a long time until I was in a stable place in my life to get one! So happy we now have little Trevor.
 

katesgoey

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I, frankly, wasn't particularly interested in tortoises or turtles as pets until I saw Tank and the situation he was in, learned his former owner wanted a swimming pool instead of him and for me, that did it.....and now, I suppose, I've got that addiction thing going on. Thank goodness my husband doesn't have the addiction, but a good admiration of them so we choose carefully and think through what is best for us and the tortoises.s.s.s.:)
 

Shelly

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I have the reputation in my neighborhood as the guy with all the weird pets (chickens, birds, Koi) so when a neighbor found a tort walking down the street he assumed it was mine and gave him to me. When I could not locate owner I kept him, and was hooked. Now I have 3 DT's and 6 sliders. The chickens are long gone.
 

Meg90

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I love reptiles. Before we had tortoises, I just had ball pythons. I wanted my boyfriend to have a pet of the reptilian sort that he could enjoy. He told me growing up all he wanted was a tortoise, but his parents were the warm and fuzzy types--he got rabbits, gerbils and cats/dogs, no reptiles.

So I went on a search for a tortoise and found Nigel. Reid and I share him.

Once Nigel was a part of the family, we sort of found out that I was a bigger tort person than he was! :p And now we have three torts, Nigel, and Anouk and Novalee, my two Greek girls. I've been hooked ever since!

Oh, and since Nigel we now have (and when I say we, I mean mostly ME lol) two ball pythons, three tortoises, eight crested geckos, two gargoyle geckos, one box turtle, and one Argentine tegu.
 
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