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Posted (edited)
On 2/20/2023 at 11:41 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

They are like 2”. I feel like it’s some kind of a trick where they are little and cute NOW but then get massive…🤨

enter the world of Oscars.

this is how LFSs work. they can setup say 20longs they cannot setup 10000 gallon tanks.and they can keep more if they are smaller, so they get the juveniles and you get to grow them up, and figure out what to do with them if you dont have space.

Edited by Theplatymaster
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Posted

I’m so glad they are banned here.

They were living the life of bettas in plastic tubs. Meanwhile turtles have lots of needs and very big spaces. Just sad

 

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Posted

I wonder how many go home and then are just dumped in the local pond when they get too big for the tank. We have a few years before Squirt outgrows the 125 gal (he's 6  inches now)

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Posted
On 2/20/2023 at 9:15 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Anyone know the official name for these turtles? Are they sliders of some sort?

Looks like yellow-bellied sliders to me, but not sure at all

Posted
On 2/20/2023 at 1:25 PM, Lennie said:

Looks like yellow-bellied sliders to me, but not sure at all

You can be sure they are yellow bellied sliders.

On 2/20/2023 at 1:45 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

One of the big issues with turtles is lifespan

Squirt, our Red-Eared Slider will grow to about 12" and have about a 20-30 yr life span. That's why he's in a 125 gal tank, so we don't have to keep buying bigger tanks...this is his 4th and likely final tank. 

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Posted (edited)

We stopped by a reptile show/sales thing a few weeks back, just to see what was there.  I was surprised to see a lot of spiders (including black widows), several types of mantis, and quite a few isopods.  Anyway... there were also a bunch of sulcata tortoise babies and DANG are those little things cute! (not my picture, source: Sulcata Tortoise – David's Jungle (davidsjungle.com))

I can imagine plenty of these go home without the knowledge that they can live ~100 years and weigh 200 pounds.  Though I will say that the one guy selling them was pretty honest about how long they live at least.  We didn't ask him how big they get.  Of course we are not in the market for such a creature.  Though my daughter will eventually get a snake if she gets her math caught up.  I could never sell creatures like this, I struggle selling queen bees to people and they're 'just a bug'!  If 10,000 people went to this reptile expo, how many would actually be set up to care for one of these things?  Of course... that can be said for a lot of pets, honestly.

Baby Sulcata Tortoise – David's Jungle

Edited by jwcarlson
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Posted

@jwcarlson they are adorable.

We have 4 mediterranean tortoises we adopted as babies from my mom's friend, as hers are busy breeding nonstop. She was rehoming the babies so we directly went for it!

They are adorable, now they grew up a lil bit as they are 2 years old. 

Here is a grumpy baby pic of one of my tortoises when we got them:

image.jpeg.5c05d258b146249ef583f262eca54afe.jpeg

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Posted (edited)
On 2/20/2023 at 10:50 PM, jwcarlson said:

They're so cute!  I could easily see coming home with three of them and then six months down the line being like WHAT WAS I THINKING?!

Pretty understandable! 

Also tortoises are one of the hardest pets I've ever owned. Their diet changes between the species a lot, but they enjoy eating wild plants/weeds/flowers and it is their main diet. I'm glad we have plenty stuff to grow in the garden for them and collect wild weeds/flowers outside, but it would be pretty hard to keep them healthy otherwise. They are def not suitable for home imo. They have UV light needs, additives for their shells, very varying diet that don't benefit from any supermarket foods mostly, and mine never eaten any herbivore pellets I've tried, so never accepted dry food. So they are def hard to take care of. And huge lifespan!

In the first two years, we had to keep them at home as they were easy to prey on for wild birds etc. and they were sensitive. Now they are outside enjoying their garden since last spring.

image.jpeg.8160e755883fa9fdf8cb0bdb557aaeb9.jpeg

Edited by Lennie
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Posted
On 2/20/2023 at 2:28 PM, jwcarlson said:

there were also a bunch of sulcata tortoise

We have wild ones here that look similar (darker) and we call them gopher tortoises. One popped up out of a hole in my front yard one day.

 

1B9EDB06-481F-4BD7-8927-C370C7FF4433.jpeg

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Posted

I was watching a David Attenborough "Wild City" episode on Youtube the other day and it showed that in fresh water areas of Singapore, Red-eared Sliders (from North America) are a booming population--released when people got tired of keeping them as pets, and now growing in numbers. 

Somehow, I never before thought of 'our' critters becoming invasive in other parts of the world. 

Baby turtles and tortoises are the cutest, it's definitely a trick that's easy to fall for.

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Posted

Red eared sliders got moved to ‘introduced’ in Washington state. They are actively competing with the native western pond turtle for habitat and apparently have no issues brumating through our mild winters.

 

Yet they are still sold in chain stores. There long lifespans make them terrible pets for most. They get them for their 8 year old kid. At 18 the kid decides the turtle is too much trouble and releases it into the wild. A far more common circumstance then I would like. The unfortunate truth is that as cute as baby turtles are they should be passed up, unless you are willing to devote 25+ years to caring for them. 

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Posted

I had a red eared terrapin (that's our name for them) when I was kid lots of fun and a great if slightly grumpy pet. He had a deep tray of water that we kept by the fire and he would climb out and roam about the house . He would also climb up the inside of trouser legs if you sat at a good angle. He also loved getting a salt scrub.

I had it about 10 years when a kitten based incident ended his days. He was about 15cm long.

As to the rate of dumping them in the UK quite a few ponds have signs up requesting you don't as they are causing havoc. 

Only see them in lizard shops generally though not in the big chain pet stores and not in most LFS.

They are also a lot more expensive then they were when I got Caesar.

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Posted
On 2/21/2023 at 7:42 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I wonder why the bigger turtles do not have it.

Smaller turtles fit more easily in children's mouths?  🤷‍♂️

On 2/21/2023 at 8:24 AM, Flumpweesel said:

As to the rate of dumping them in the UK quite a few ponds have signs up requesting you don't as they are causing havoc.

It is interesting that sliders have exhibited such an impressive ability to invade new habitats!  I wonder why this species and not say, painted turtles to the same extent?  I know painted have introduced populations around, but they seem much less extensive.  I mean sliders can even move into where pained exist already.  Sliders, for whatever else people may feel about their introductions, are absolutely successful! 

Posted
On 2/21/2023 at 3:24 PM, Flumpweesel said:

As to the rate of dumping them in the UK quite a few ponds have signs up requesting you don't as they are causing havoc. 

My granddad used to have some in a pond behind his house. It was his pride hatching out little sliders, which were the cutest things ever! 🥲 When he passed my uncle got them and still has some. 
I understand that they may become a nuisance, but it’s great that they’re so adaptable! 

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