Why, how, when ?

[H2447INTX]

So this post is for anyone (hopefully long time breeders) to post up their stories.

Why did you get into tortoise keeping/ breeding?

How did you start, first tort? Species? Etc.

When did you chose to share your life with these fascinating creatures?

I'll go first , I'm not a breeder and have only about 7ys exp overall with tortoises.
4-5 with box turtles.

So I'll be 43 in December, back in the day (middle school age) a friend I had met in 3rd grade had box turtles, eastern I beleave the 1st one was. So that kinda when and how I got into it. So over those school yrs we collected a great number of turtles. All species and of course we didnt know the laws or best rule to keeping. We simply had a large pen build filled it with plants and they all lived happily ever after. Food and water. They basicly lived wild just in our back yard.

They actually breed, ground hatched etc. Was a great time. Then of cores we grew up and life changed and on with life we went.

Fast forward to my early 30s, walking threw traders village NW houston, we see a small pet shop and of course there is a little sulcata, later to be named Samson.

Brought back all the love I had from school days. So we bought him really not knowing what we got , did a lo of asking and searching , reading .
We thought be where doing it correctly back then, but we did not. We had him 7 yrs grew to about. 10-12" little pyramiding but not honorable.

Well we lost him one day got out of the yard. Was heartbreaking So we bought 2 more , built a nice big enclosure outside. Thought this would do well. Well 2 weeks later Samson was found , so we are at 3.

Long story short we lost all three. One disappeared, two passed over night. Still dont know why.


So it's been a few yrs and after doing better research , reading and trying to make my understanding of the information work, we are trying again with 2 leopards. . Atlas & Dexter.

Still learning so I'm always msg members and asking when I don't know or when I'm second guessing my thoughts.



So please if you feel so inclined share your story.

 

[TortoiseRacket]

This is a little late, but I’m still responding!
For tortoises, I went to a reptile expo and saw an adorable little tortoise from a sketchy seller...$40... and that’s my story. (My tortoise was eating romaine lettuce for the first 5 months because I did all the research, and then decided to only listen to this person for some reason.
Pretty lame, but I can’t change it.

 

[Yvonne G]

I've posted my story before. Here's an article I wrote for our club's newsletter many years ago:

Mom, Will You Take My Turtles?

By Yvonne G

Many years ago, my son bought a home of his own and started to accumulate his own pets. First of all he “rescued” (read bought) a female box turtle with puffy eyes that was being kept in the water turtle enclosure in a local pet store. Then another such box turtle, then a Gopherus agassizii that a co-worker’s father had run over with the disc in his vineyard….well, you get the idea.

Things went along smoothly for months. He built separate pens for each kind of turtle he had. He nursed them all back to health and he had a happy, healthy family of turtles and tortoises.

But then came the desire to get a rottweiler puppy. Big mistake! The puppy decided that all these little crawly, wiggly things in “his” backyard were just wonderful to chew on.

I doubt my son gave a second thought to which came first, the turtle or the pup. He had fallen in love with the pup, and the turtles just had to go! “Mom, will you take my turtles?”

I had a couple tortoises when I was first married way back in the '50s, but I never really had an affinity for them. It was just something you had out in the backyard. But I had become a more sensitive person in my old age, and decided if I were to start caring for these animals, I needed to do some research and find out how they should be cared for…do it the right way. This was before computers…you know, the olden days! I bought every book I could find on the subject, some good – some bad – some in between. I was one of the first subscribers to Reptiles magazine. I started a turtle club in my city. And guess what? I discovered you can’t just have one or two turtles.

When people find out you like turtles, they bring you more. Or when you go to the pet store for cat food and see a different kind of turtle, you just have to buy it!

I’ve been in the “turtle business” for about 35 years now. I have reached the point where I realize I have to say “no” occasionally. I have stopped diversifying and have settled into keeping only a few different species. My whole property is covered with turtle and tortoise pens. There is no “front yard,” only tortoise pens. There is no “back yard,” only tortoise pens.

I recognized quite early on that there was a need for a turtle rescue in my city. At first I operated the rescue through the local turtle club, but now I’m totally on my own. I have a long list of people waiting to adopt, and I receive turtles and tortoises weekly. I keep them for a period of two weeks just to make sure there isn’t a previous owner looking for them. During this time I make sure the animal is eating and looks healthy.

When it’s time to find a home for my animals, I make an appointment and go look at the prospective owner’s habitat.

I try to place water turtles in a home where they can be outside in a pond, and I like for tortoises to have their own separate pen, not to be allowed to roam freely in the yard. The majority of the animals I receive have been lost & found. This means the previous home was not secure. Either a gate was left open or he dug out under the fence, or whatever. This is why I caution people to build him a separate pen.

I believe that each different type of turtle or tortoise needs it’s own enclosure, and I don’t adopt to people who plan on mixing species. I think that animals from different continents have different micro-organisms inside them that might prove harmful to other species.

This is a labor of love for me. I’m retired now, and spend all my free time with the turtles and tortoises. And, after all these years, I still have that first rottweiler chewed box turtle, and the disc scarred desert tortoise.


Clovis Turtle & Tortoise Rescue

 

[Torta-geddon]

I'm not a breeder or an expert and I doubt I ever will be but here's how I got into tortoises.

When I was very young my mom had a few tortoises I'm not sure of the breed but my mom loved them. She eventually gave them to one of her life long friends. My mom and I used to talk a lot about turtles and tortoises when I was around 5 or 6. Whenever we would be driving across the country (which was often) we would see tortoises on the highway and stop to make sure they made it to wherever they were going safely. I always wanted to get a tortoise specifically a giant tortoise when I was little but eventually gave up and hadn't thought about them in a very long time.

March of last year my mom died. At the wake my family had put several pictures of her all over the walls. One of these pictures was of my mom in her 20s sitting on a Galapagos tortoise. My wife noticed this picture and we started talking about tortoises. I told her about how much my mom and I loved them when I was young.

My wife went out of her way to find me my little tortoise and surprise me with him as a Christmas gift. My tortoise is definitely the most thoughtful and sweet gift I have ever recieved from anyone and I absolutely love it. I plan to eventually own a couple more from a couple different species (they are addictive).