Another pet store story

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Mrturtle527

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So I was so excited to find this local reptile store and took my boys there this weekend to check things out. I was looking to see if they had torts and if so was going to keep them in mind for future tort purchases, but is what I found made me sad. They have many reptiles and it appeared they want to take care of them, however I know nothing about reptiles except for a little for torts.

They had one enclosure for adults and in what might have been a little bigger then my 40 gallon were about 15 torts at least 4" in size and many species mixed together (I recognized Russians, box, red foot, and a few others...) They were on a gravel substrate and were all claiming in in the food dish which consisted of all fruit.

The other enclosure was for hatchlings. They had about 10 in here, mostly Marginated and a couple of others that I wasn't sure of. They just came out from being soaked but all the same above applied, including the food, substrate, etc...

When I asked them about the different breeds they seemed to be somewhat knowledgable but said they feed them mushed up dry dog food once a week to provide protein to them and they mostly give them fruit.

So my dilemma is how do I help? I can print care sheets, but don't know a lot of all breeds. I can recommend new substrate options and diet which would help but what about mixing them and so forth?

Like so many if I had a ton of money I would have come home with about 25 torts!!!!!

Thoughts, ideas, feedback on what to do?
 

Yvonne G

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I don't really know much about those other species either, but you can trust the care sheets over at the Tortoise Trust web site. Print out the different care sheets and take them in to the manager.

Also, the redfoot care sheet at the Tortoise Library

And the russian care sheet at http://russiantortoise.net/care_sheet.htm

We've talked about mixing species here on the Forum. You can do a search and find the best explanation and print that out to give him too.

But you must be humble. If he gets the feeling that you are talking down to him he will tune you out.
 
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