Ignacio
Member
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2016
- Messages
- 54
“Long time listener, first time caller”
And after my failed attempt to be funny let me introduce myself. My name is Ignacio, from California, former military, turned 30 last week, student, photographer and my life partner for last almost 2.5 years has been a WC Russian tort.
I got Maxx (the tort) about 5 months after I got out of the Army and moved back to Cali. When I first started going back to college one of my classes got cancelled for the semester for some reason and that left me with a long break between classes, too long to just wait in campus but too short to go home and return. I got in a routine of going to the pet store every Tuesday and Thursday to play with the bunnies and look at the box turtles a few weeks after I started going, 2 torts were put in the same big tank with the boxies. The next couple of months I saw how the torts kept looking worse every visit and price went from $159 to $139 to $99 to $69, one day the bigger one (female) was gone so I asked if someone took her home, to what the kid working there casually replied “nop, it just died”. By this time I had already found this forum and done lots of reading so I decided to get him and give him a dignifying last few days, I was convinced he was going to die soon after. The day after, I got a small bookshelf, set it up with substrate, terracotta water and food dishes, UVB light heat and then went to that store to get Max, price had gone down to $19 and he looked like he was already dead if not for the occasional opening of his eyes and minimum head movement. The first few days he would only eat if I cut the greens in really small pieces and placed it right in front of him, also I had to move him manually in and out the heat lamp or he would not walk to or from the heat by himself. As the days and then weeks went by he slowly started to get more active, he started to sometimes get inside his bowl soak himself without me having to soak him in a separate water container, he ate well, was seeking microclimates. When I saw he was here to stay I got happy, found a reptile (mostly turtles) vet, he got a mostly clean bill of health he just had to get something for internal parasites. I built him a proper indoor enclosure, tortoise proofed my balcony (I live in the city in a overpriced yet nice one bedroom apartment so I don’t have a yard) so anytime its warm he gets to roam around the balcony eating the plants I placed for him to take bites off the low hanging leaves (everything there but one plant is tort edible and he has no access to that plant).
I got him in May 2014 and now almost 2.5 years later, I live with a healthy little dude and still visit this forum regularly mainly when I see a plant I like and want to know if it is tort safe, so I decided to finally introduce myself to say hi and because I plan on getting a baby Box Turtle from ATC (I done my own research in the business so please don’t share your experiences in here since changes are I already read then in other threads in the forum) and since its going to be my first hatchling I feel like I will get anxious about the care (also please don’t give me advise about raising and keeping them healthy here I will create a separate thread for that). Also I will be moving to the central valley by the end of the year in order to safe money by getting a 3x bigger home at half what I pay here (as much as I love the city I NEED a backyard) and will need opinions and advices about outdoor enclosure building designs (again just making a comment about future plans but not requesting advice yet, I will create a thread when it is relevant).
Sorry for the long novel and thank you for all the advice I gotten over the passed years from the knowledgeable members here and nice to finally say hi.
And after my failed attempt to be funny let me introduce myself. My name is Ignacio, from California, former military, turned 30 last week, student, photographer and my life partner for last almost 2.5 years has been a WC Russian tort.
I got Maxx (the tort) about 5 months after I got out of the Army and moved back to Cali. When I first started going back to college one of my classes got cancelled for the semester for some reason and that left me with a long break between classes, too long to just wait in campus but too short to go home and return. I got in a routine of going to the pet store every Tuesday and Thursday to play with the bunnies and look at the box turtles a few weeks after I started going, 2 torts were put in the same big tank with the boxies. The next couple of months I saw how the torts kept looking worse every visit and price went from $159 to $139 to $99 to $69, one day the bigger one (female) was gone so I asked if someone took her home, to what the kid working there casually replied “nop, it just died”. By this time I had already found this forum and done lots of reading so I decided to get him and give him a dignifying last few days, I was convinced he was going to die soon after. The day after, I got a small bookshelf, set it up with substrate, terracotta water and food dishes, UVB light heat and then went to that store to get Max, price had gone down to $19 and he looked like he was already dead if not for the occasional opening of his eyes and minimum head movement. The first few days he would only eat if I cut the greens in really small pieces and placed it right in front of him, also I had to move him manually in and out the heat lamp or he would not walk to or from the heat by himself. As the days and then weeks went by he slowly started to get more active, he started to sometimes get inside his bowl soak himself without me having to soak him in a separate water container, he ate well, was seeking microclimates. When I saw he was here to stay I got happy, found a reptile (mostly turtles) vet, he got a mostly clean bill of health he just had to get something for internal parasites. I built him a proper indoor enclosure, tortoise proofed my balcony (I live in the city in a overpriced yet nice one bedroom apartment so I don’t have a yard) so anytime its warm he gets to roam around the balcony eating the plants I placed for him to take bites off the low hanging leaves (everything there but one plant is tort edible and he has no access to that plant).
I got him in May 2014 and now almost 2.5 years later, I live with a healthy little dude and still visit this forum regularly mainly when I see a plant I like and want to know if it is tort safe, so I decided to finally introduce myself to say hi and because I plan on getting a baby Box Turtle from ATC (I done my own research in the business so please don’t share your experiences in here since changes are I already read then in other threads in the forum) and since its going to be my first hatchling I feel like I will get anxious about the care (also please don’t give me advise about raising and keeping them healthy here I will create a separate thread for that). Also I will be moving to the central valley by the end of the year in order to safe money by getting a 3x bigger home at half what I pay here (as much as I love the city I NEED a backyard) and will need opinions and advices about outdoor enclosure building designs (again just making a comment about future plans but not requesting advice yet, I will create a thread when it is relevant).
Sorry for the long novel and thank you for all the advice I gotten over the passed years from the knowledgeable members here and nice to finally say hi.
