How old do you list baby tortoises?

Tom

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My comments are in red.


(c) Exceptions. The provisions of this section are not applicable to:

(1) The sale, holding for sale, and distribution of live turtles and viable turtle eggs for bona fide scientific, educational, or exhibitional purposes, other than use as pets. (education, scientific research clause)

(2) The sale, holding for sale, and distribution of live turtles and viable turtle eggs not in connection with a business. (This is where we are able to sell as hobbyist to friends, family and other hobbyists--right?)

You are correct.
 

Kapidolo Farms

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At the TTPG I asked the speaker on this topic 'how many tortoises can I sell before I am no longer a 'small time hobbyist breeder'". Ahh, that's the slippery slope. If I sell at a trade show, if I comply with the California Franchise Tax board if if if. Does anyone care to clarify this line which separates the small time hobbyist breeder and the commercial person?
 

jaizei

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At the TTPG I asked the speaker on this topic 'how many tortoises can I sell before I am no longer a 'small time hobbyist breeder'". Ahh, that's the slippery slope. If I sell at a trade show, if I comply with the California Franchise Tax board if if if. Does anyone care to clarify this line which separates the small time hobbyist breeder and the commercial person?


Do you write off any tortoise related expenses for tax purposes?
 

luvsdaheat

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>>As soon as their little bellies are closed up and they are eating OK.<<
Yep. We just sold 36 baby Sulcatas (from three in-ground clutches) to a Shop last weekend. They were a mix of 30, 23 and 17 days out of the ground. For what it's worth his criteria for accepting them were their 'belly buttons' closed - or nearly so, and that they're active and feeding.

TOM: would you check your profile posts, please? I wrote, asking about your profile pic. thanks, brad wolff
 

Tom

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Does anyone care to clarify this line which separates the small time hobbyist breeder and the commercial person?

As with so many things, I don't think there is a definitive answer to this. One "suggestion" that was proposed to me is that if you have a "real job", some other primary source of income, and tortoises are something you pursue as a hobby, outside of your "real job", then you are a hobbyist. After reading that sentence, I am quite sure you will come up with many questions and possible scenarios to question the assertion. This still does not answer your question of how many do you need to sell before you are no longer a hobbyist. According to this person, as long as your other income source remains the "primary" income source, you would be safe. Once the dollar amount of sold tortoises adds up to more than your primary income source, then you would no longer be a hobbyist.

I've had many conversations about the absurdity of enforcing laws like these with the people charged with enforcing them. They usually just make stuff up as they go.

I think what this will always boil down to is how the officer enforcing these laws feels about you on that particular day. There are so many animal rightists running our government and animal enforcement agencies now, that they can basically do whatever they want, whenever they want. Look at the elephant ankus legislation that just went through. No more elephants in the movie business in CA, just like that. Boom! Done. Its over. Now our legislators think they know more about training elephants than the people who have been doing it successfully for their whole lives. Rather than listening to career professionals who set the bar, they listened to political activists with an obvious bias and clear agenda. Sad day, I tell ya'.
 

dmmj

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it's a badly written laws left open to interpretation and abuse no surprise it was written by politicians
 

Kapidolo Farms

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I've had many conversations about the absurdity of enforcing laws like these with the people charged with enforcing them. They usually just make stuff up as they go.

You have once again outdone yourself with a quotable quote.

That is the essence of why I sell and ship they way I do, I intentionally express why the sale is happening and use a certified reptile shipper. The first "judge" in every legal interaction is the person implementing the law. Might even be a national public debate surrounding that very POV going on right now. I have most frequently had good if not great interactions with all law and ordinance enforcement people often guiding me to do what I want to do without doing it wrong. But that once in awhile episode scares the feces out of me.

So say for example, I'm a hospital administrator and my salary is 145K/year and I gross 100K/year in baby tortoises, I would be less commercial than someone who only sells tortoises but grosses 55K/year? Still seems wonky. I think Tom you are hitting the nail so very squarely on the head...

Tom R. "I've had many conversations about the absurdity of enforcing laws like these with the people charged with enforcing them. They usually just make stuff up as they go."
 
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jaizei

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No, I don't, so maybe the IRS is the referee?

That would be one factor. I don't think it's necessarily difficult to differentiate between hobby and business. Is the person operating/acting as a business; have they incorporated/use a DBA, do they sell non-tortoise products (Mazuri, bulbs), are they also buying tortoises from other sources for resell? Etc. Actions > words

If you're making money, it's usually more advantageous to say you're a business. It's much more common for a hobbyist to try to pass off as a business than vice versa. Unless your hobby is making money.

I don't think the amount or division of income really has anything to do with it.
 

mike taylor

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I can tell you if you only have one set of breeding stock you are a hobby breeder . If you have sixty breeds of Tortoise and selling all them babies you're making money then you just maybe be a business . You are never going to get rich from one breeding pair of Tortoises .
 

Kapidolo Farms

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I can tell you if you only have one set of breeding stock you are a hobby breeder . If you have sixty breeds of Tortoise and selling all them babies you're making money then you just maybe be a business . You are never going to get rich from one breeding pair of Tortoises .

Getting rich? Not sure I know what that means at all. Do you mean wealth accumulation? That is a somewhat different thing. Getting rich is about having cash to spend in abundance relative to your 'needs'. Gangsta rapers and sport stars and other entertainment types are the examples of this yeah? Accumulating wealth is about building an income stream based on capital accumulation that you don't otherwise fool with. That is established with a labor or resource based income stream.

The small $$ I make from tortoises is indeed making me rich, I spend it all on the tortoises in excess of what they make.

Just sorta having some fun here Mike, like Steve Martin once said (per show) "I learned just enough in my college psychology class to screw me up for the rest of my life". With me it was many courses in economics/business, I did not get a degree in these fields but there was once a systems where after X number of units the cost per semester did not go up, I gorged on economics and business, all taken credit/no credit.
 

mike taylor

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That was meant to be a little sarcastic. If you can make a business off Tortoises and turtles and become financially stable and quit your day job ,then I say you're rich . ha-ha
 

Yvonne G

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I doubt that will ever happen. I spend way more on tortoise-related expenses than I make on the babies.
 

mike taylor

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Yeah Will likes to use is college education on me. Ha-ha But I have a degree in common since. Just picking Will don't throw horse apples at me please Jacqui already has that one rapped up .
 

Kapidolo Farms

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Yeah Will likes to use is college education on me. Ha-ha But I have a degree in common since. Just picking Will don't throw horse apples at me please Jacqui already has that one rapped up .

Yeah, using that education, The thing is most of what I bring here in terms of biology I learned whilst in High School. I threw some college at @dmmj regarding being alive and emergent properties and was appropriately ignored. I am usually up to my knuckles in mouse apples everyday, I prefer not to fool with the equine variety.

But like those people who were sports stars in school then didn't go 'pro' but kept exercising and playing, I too have been a life long learner of things that interest me. No trophy case, but I'd like to think of TFO as the city league for our sport of keeping tortoises. It's fun and I like the exercise. I also exercise to be good at the sport, sorta go hand in hand. I know we have some 'soccer' parents here too, don't get them started! :p

Will
 

LRTortoises

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This is all a very helpful discussion. I know moved around from the Original post a bit. With a breeding group of Marginateds and Redfoots I feel like a hobbyist for sure. Not getting rich off them by any stretch of the means.

I think I am landing on 2 months as my time I will ship out. It seems like I am seeing both growth and solidness. Here are the first two clutches of my season. These are from the Marginated adults that used to be @GBtortoises IMG_0074.JPG
 

mike taylor

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I wish I had more time to think out stuff I put on here . Most of the time I post on the run . But as for college I have some hours no degree . ha-ha One day I'll have time to get a business degree . I like reading Kelly's threads that dude knows his tort stuff .
 

GBtortoises

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I ship babies anytime after 10 days old. That 10 day period allows time for their yolk sacs to be completely dissolved and healed, for their shells to take "normal" shape and for me to observe each one eating and drinking. Beyond that time period there is no real changes except the beginning of their growth period to adulthood. Their survival process starts immediately out of the egg and remains basically the same throughout their young lives until they reach the young adult stage. As long as they were born healthy, are at 10 days they will be at 90 days, at 180 days and so on as long as they are provided the means to do so in captivity by their keeper. There is no point where they are more or less "fragile". It's all dependent upon the environment that they are in.
 

LRTortoises

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I ship babies anytime after 10 days old. That 10 day period allows time for their yolk sacs to be completely dissolved and healed, for their shells to take "normal" shape and for me to observe each one eating and drinking. Beyond that time period there is no real changes except the beginning of their growth period to adulthood. Their survival process starts immediately out of the egg and remains basically the same throughout their young lives until they reach the young adult stage. As long as they were born healthy, are at 10 days they will be at 90 days, at 180 days and so on as long as they are provided the means to do so in captivity by their keeper. There is no point where they are more or less "fragile". It's all dependent upon the environment that they are in.


Yeah to be honest part of me just likes having baby tortoises for a few months. Plus I know I give them a good humid and diet start.
 

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I never sell my Hermann's tortoise hatchlings. I wait until after their first winter, which they of course spend brumating/hibernating. After that, they're at least 8 months old. And I only sell tortoises in spring anyway, so that they have the entire summer to get used to their new home.
 
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