How do you not have a billion tortoises?

Rogue097

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I built a table for my Russian that is now the biggest piece of furniture I have haha. When I'm older and settled with space and money to do everything right, I would love more tortoises. I feel like once I have that capability I'm gonna want every kind of tortoise I can get ?
 

Tom

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I built a table for my Russian that is now the biggest piece of furniture I have haha. When I'm older and settled with space and money to do everything right, I would love more tortoises. I feel like once I have that capability I'm gonna want every kind of tortoise I can get ?
I'll tell all of you: If the opportunity comes up where you have the time, space and money to do whatever you want and you get a bunch of tortoises, your time will no longer be your own. I've got around three dozen torts right now. Even with every effort to make things as efficient and easy as possible, It takes an average of two to three hours a day. I have 10 night boxes to maintain and keep clean, plus 6 indoor closed chambers. I have 25 water bowls to dump, rinse and refill. I have 25 food plates to fill. 40 cactus stands and 9 raised garden beds to tend to. Babies get soaked daily, adults weekly or more. Plus digging up eggs, incubating and starting babies. Plus maintaining all the enclosures and pulling bad weeds, fixing night boxes or building new ones, straightening enclosure walls, filling in unwanted burrow attempts, scrounging food for them from safe places out in the world, adjusting and checking thermostats and heaters... The list is endless. I have space and money, but there isn't enough time in the day to do everything I want to do, so I have to severely limit my number of species and number of individuals. I'm constantly questioning if its worth it and considering what to cut out, but I love them all and derive tremendous enjoyment from each and every one of them. There are half a dozen more tortoise species that I'd like to work with, and several dozen other reptile species, but I keep it to a minimum. Gotta have some time leftover for the wife and child, falconry in winter, friends and other family, hobbies, and oh yeah, work. Work is a low priority, but a necessary evil. I haven't had that problem for months now.

As each of your collections grow and you find yourself with more and more daily tortoises chores, you will reign yourself in. Each person has a point where they feel like its too much. And it is too much for some people. Animals are my profession and career, so I can get away with more than your average person, but there still needs to be a balance.

Still, to me, there is nothing more satisfying and enjoyable than buying babies, spending years raising them into healthy adults, and then hatching out their babies so that other people can experience the same joy, happiness, amazement, pride, and satisfaction that I derived from raising the parent tortoises.
 

turtlebean

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I would definitely have a billion if I could;) Maybe later in life when I can dedicate more consistent time and energy to more little torts, until then Tortillini will be living it up as an only child lol!
 

Maro2Bear

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Can you buy time with money??

But you can purchase more space and hire ppl to work for you. A nice large tortoise farm, with fields and fields of grass and orchard hay and grapes and mulberries and squash blossoms. Large and small soaking areas. Wonderful outdoor enclosures with no toxic weeds. Torts that listen. An entire shop full of crafters building enclosures. A few nice green houses. So, unlimited funds do help.

Check out Primitive Predators on YouTube and the new greenhouses they built for their tortoise collection...
i could use a few greenhouses/enclosures like this.
 

Braeden p

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Only one I don’t plan on every getting more, cleaning Betty’s pen is hard to do with Betty running around.
 

Tom

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Really? Well not for me probably because you have the Tasks of caring for lots of Tortoises. And I only have 2 which means I have Lots of Time.
Right. But that was the original question. Why do you not have a billion? My answer is that I don't have a billion, or more than I already have, because they take so much time to care for. I could buy as many as I wanted, and I have acres of space to house them on, but there isn't enough time in a day to care for them all.
 

Tom

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Can you buy time with money??
Yes. You can hire someone to do the work for you, and that would give you back all that time. I have friends and family that help me out from time to time, and I get so much done while they are doing the normal maintenance stuff.
 

Maggie3fan

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I had 18 parakeets, but sold 7 babies to a Mom and Pop pet shop, so I have 11 birds, 15 box turtles, 3 tortoises and 2 cats. For the turtles and tortoises, each has their own outside pen, and an inside tort table when needed. I've had more and it would totally easy that I could be an animal hoarder
 

VegasJeff

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I'll tell all of you: If the opportunity comes up where you have the time, space and money to do whatever you want and you get a bunch of tortoises, your time will no longer be your own. I've got around three dozen torts right now. Even with every effort to make things as efficient and easy as possible, It takes an average of two to three hours a day. I have 10 night boxes to maintain and keep clean, plus 6 indoor closed chambers. I have 25 water bowls to dump, rinse and refill. I have 25 food plates to fill. 40 cactus stands and 9 raised garden beds to tend to. Babies get soaked daily, adults weekly or more. Plus digging up eggs, incubating and starting babies. Plus maintaining all the enclosures and pulling bad weeds, fixing night boxes or building new ones, straightening enclosure walls, filling in unwanted burrow attempts, scrounging food for them from safe places out in the world, adjusting and checking thermostats and heaters... The list is endless. I have space and money, but there isn't enough time in the day to do everything I want to do, so I have to severely limit my number of species and number of individuals. I'm constantly questioning if its worth it and considering what to cut out, but I love them all and derive tremendous enjoyment from each and every one of them. There are half a dozen more tortoise species that I'd like to work with, and several dozen other reptile species, but I keep it to a minimum. Gotta have some time leftover for the wife and child, falconry in winter, friends and other family, hobbies, and oh yeah, work. Work is a low priority, but a necessary evil. I haven't had that problem for months now.

As each of your collections grow and you find yourself with more and more daily tortoises chores, you will reign yourself in. Each person has a point where they feel like its too much. And it is too much for some people. Animals are my profession and career, so I can get away with more than your average person, but there still needs to be a balance.

Still, to me, there is nothing more satisfying and enjoyable than buying babies, spending years raising them into healthy adults, and then hatching out their babies so that other people can experience the same joy, happiness, amazement, pride, and satisfaction that I derived from raising the parent tortoises.

You ever consider starting a Pet or Tortoise store?
 

turtlesteve

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I have young kids. Time is the scarce resource here too. When they get older, I’ll have some helpers.
 

OkAdiza

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I have young kids. Time is the scarce resource here too. When they get older, I’ll have some helpers.
I completely understand. I originally planned to wait until our children were mostly out of the house or older, but my husband let me get my first tort for a birthday gift last year. My oldest child is almost 15, but our youngest two are 3 and almost 5. I don’t actually know where the time is, but I do have a few older helpers too.
 

Olivertort1

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I have 3 Redfoots I bought from Southern Reptiles . One 2.5 yrs old, 2 seven month olds and a Florida Box turtle I adopted (owner surrender). Been thinking about another Redfoot. They are my fave! I have a nice size yard and a warm climate for the most part in SC plus a nice turtle yard my hubby built.
 

Tom

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You ever consider starting a Pet or Tortoise store?
HA! That would take even MORE time...

Seriously though, I worked in the retail pet trade from 1986 until 1994. A year of that was wholesale. I enjoyed the business. Like any business, it had its good and bad points, but I can't support my lifestyle on pet store wages any more. I started in '86 at $3 an hour. I was so happy when minimum wage went up to $3.25! It was like I won the lottery. You should have heard the store's owner complaining about it...
 

Obbie

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Excluding breeders who obviously really do have several creeps of tortoises, how does the average tort pet owner not end up with a bunch of tortoises?! I love having these guys!

First, yes they are such sweet critters ! My rescue is about 40 pounds, she loves to eat ! Yeah, I’m retired so I have time for her, but she is a big girl. I know from members here, that they are solitary creatures and I would never want to stress her out.
 
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