I had a friend who had a turtle named after his best friend, conversations were fucking confusing in that house whenever the turtle would go missing.
Turtles aren't particularly responsive or loneliness-abating - look at Clyde's post. If you're only home in the evenings and don't have too much time to devote to a pet, you'd be better off with a hamster (or a couple dwarf hamsters or mice). They're nocturnal so they're active when you're home, friendly, trainable, don't require a specialized diet or environment, and don't come with a lifespan that commits you to them for possibly decades.
TOO LATE! [yt=SHELDON! ]v6s7kiC8aMs[/yt] The tank still needs a food bowl and a hiding place. I'm ordering those online tonight. Petco didn't have a hiding place with an entrance big enough to fit his shell.
"Cuff". Although to make that name work, you need another turtle, named "Link". And to be a washed up Italian boxer.
I bought one of those log hamster houses for Shelly, the ones you can bend to whatever width you'd like. But tonight, even a cardboard box would do. Tortoises need to be able to hide. It's upsetting for them if they can't. Also, a glass home is a bad idea for a tortoise. They've got crazy strong legs and they can kick themselves right side up if they end up on their back, but only so long as they're able to kick against something. Glass walls are too slippery, so they just lay there stuck. I've got a large, mostly see-through rubbermaid container. It's easier to clean, and the plastic is just rough enough for if he tips over, which he used to do a lot when he climbed his log house.
I don't know about a name, but if I had a pet turtle, there's no way I wouldn't glue some GI Joe sized cannons and guns on the little dude.
Hmm, excellent points. I've ordered a thing for him to hide under. I cut up the carry-box from petco (tiny evil box) so that it's open for him to get into in the meantime. Thanks for the tip! I'll think of what to do to modify the sides. I certainly don't want him tipped over while I'm gone for 12 hours at a time!
Now, for the general questions. I plan on feeding him a slight amount of fruit (berries, bananas) along w/ lots of vegetables. I've got lists of foods he can eat. I'll be learning recipes for myself that use those fruits and vegetables so that we can both eat healthy. It's the easiest way to feed him, since a bag of veggies will go bad before he has a chance to finish it. Do the veggies have to be cut in little tiny pieces? Veggies include carrots, tomatoes, squash, and cucumber so that should be easy to use in my dinners. Some of the stuff I've never tried is turnip greens (what's that?) and collard greens (huh?) so if y'all know what to put them in, please let me know. A lot of websites say that turtles need a non-vitamin calcium supplement. I ordered one from Amazon and should have it by the end of the month (sent to my parents' house due to UPS RUNNING AWAY WITH MY PACKAGES IF I'M NOT HOME). In the meantime, I have some calcium-containing food pellets (the gross dry food) to throw in with his regular meals. If he eats any of them, hopefully he'll hold up well this month. Also, I found an organic store. Very pricy but, I don't know how sensitive turtles are to preservatives. Should I buy organic? I don't know if I can afford it. A packet of those organic grape-sized tomatoes cost me almost $5 today.
Nah. The more he has to chew, the better. They need to chew hard things in order to keep their beak worn down. I didn't realize this with Shelly until later, so now he's got a bit of a parrot looking beak going. If you give Shelly big chunk of carrot, he'll gnaw at it like a dog would chew a bone. Oh, and try to give him timothy hay. (Not alfalfa) You can find it in the hamster section of the pet shop. If he doesn't eat it the way it is (it's hard to chew and tortoises are lazy), you can grind it up and put it on his food. It's a great source of fiber. Yeah, it's not an "If he misses one day of calcium he'll die" situation, but it's good to make sure he's getting it regularly. Is it a "calcium + vitamin D" supplement? Oh, and do you have a UV light for him? He needs it for the vitamin D. I keep mine on an 16 hour timer, so Shelly doesn't realize it's winter and try to hibernate. Another regular light, for basking, is also good. (It's valuable for him to have a warm spot to go to when he wants to speed up his metabolism.) Regular light bulbs kept burning out in my apartment, so I bought this ceramic heat thingy. It screws into a regular light socket, doesn't create light (so you can run it 24 hours if you want), and sends the heat in one direction. That helps keep the heat from going everywhere and taking away his option to cool down if he feels like it.
Ok cool. Right now I bought a $5 bulb that just produces heat. The room he's in gets a bit of sunlight during the day, so I'm not over-worried about UV for now. I can move him to the window if necessary. A 5.0 UV bulb that provides heat is on the way, though. I'll have it in about a week or two. A lot of reptile calcium bottles had a "vitamin D3" thing on it and comments said "don't buy for turtles" so I got a plain calcium bottle.
He's a tortoise, not a turtle. That'll be fine, as long as he's got the light eventually. Just make sure it produces UVA and UVB. He's adorable, by the way.
Just takes the right training, my Chihuahuas, well 2 of them are content to sit at home without fucking things up for longer than 12 hours (even though I caught some flak over it when I posted how I trained mine). The third one is learning, he's getting there, a few more weeks and he'll be just fine as well.
Oh that's definitely a tortoise, much easier to care for than a turtle. As for a hiding space, try putting a towel over a section of the tank until you can upgrade.
Also, unless it's native to a subtropical region or has lived its entire life in captivity, it will hibernate. Within the next few weeks it'll refuse to eat, find the darkest corner of its habitat, burrow under, and lie there looking dead until spring. They can, however, adapt over a period of years. My brother has had a box turtle for almost 40 years. Found him standing in the middle of a two-lane in Virginia looking bewildered, and scooped him up before a semi turned him to mush. Named him Rover. Kept him in an apartment for 20+ years. Tried to keep the habitat in the coolest, darkest corner, and Rover would dutifully hibernate every winter. The rest of the year, he'd roam around the place, mostly hugging the walls, being hand-fed tomatoes and raw meat and some vitamins from the vet. (Lack of vitamin-D, because he wasn't out in the sunshine, was an important consideration.) Gradually he started staying awake later and later into the winter, and eventually gave up this hibernating thing. What was also interesting was that the pattern on his shell became lighter and lighter, so that he turned from a mix of browns and yellows and oranges to a pale peach over yellow. He also needed to have his beak and claws filed down periodically (out in the wild, he'd be grubbing in the dirt for his food and wearing them down) - not a job for the faint of heart. Then my brother bought a house, and constructed a pen in the yard. Introduced Rover to it in the warm weather. Rover freaked at first, hunkered down in one corner blinking confusedly. Again, gradually adapted, and resumed the ancestral rhythms of hibernating in winter, bopping around the rest of the year. His shell color, however, remained pale. My brother estimates Rover's about 55-60 years old now. He'll still bring him indoors to roam around the house as long as there aren't too many people around who might step on him. Little kids adore him...they aren't sure if he's an animal or some sort of windup toy. (At top speed, he's pretty fast - about 10' in under 30 seconds, clacking and skittering across the parquet floor.) Put a live earthworm in front of him, and it'll be gone before you can say "Hey, watch him gobble up that -" And it sounds crazy, but he recognizes people. If my brother picks him up, he'll stretch out his neck and let him stroke him under the chin, with his eyes closed and the most blissful expression on his face. If one of the nephews picks him up - even though he's known the kid for 20 years - Rover will invariably piss on him before he settles down. You can't teach 'em tricks, but they're very low maintenance (you can put a cut-up tomato in front of one and go away for a week), and entertaining in their own way.
Ohhh so Sheldon might be trying to hibernate. He's very young and may have been captured in the wild, as most pet store tortoises are. He hasn't eaten anything since I got him yesterday. He kinda sniffs at his food and walks off into a dark corner. I've got him some kale, squash, tomato and carrot on his plate just in case, though.
Breakfast http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b186/Talkahuano/?action=view¤t=Video029.mp4 Om nom nom!
I can guarantee you he is probably WAY less stinky than the guinea pig in a moment of madness I got 'free' from a friend. Annoying little shit. We have a zoo...dog, cat, fish, guinea pig...the odd mouse that makes it past the cat for a day or two...
