Live naked people

Kapidolo Farms

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
5,172
Location (City and/or State)
South of Southern California, but not Mexico
Armchair forays into chelonian conservation.

“This will be brief, no matter how long it takes.” Former Mayor of Philadelphia, John Street.

My life has been a long and bumpy road, I’m glad to have shared it with so many chelonians

As a very young child, about 3 or 4, I had two red-ear sliders and two reeves turtles in a plastic bowl with a plastic palm tree and they were fed hamburger on a toothpick. My parents ‘disappeared’ their enclosure and deaths when I wasn’t looking, they knew I had become very attached in a short time. Later in my pre-teens I got to work for my Aunt and Uncle’s pet shop, my Aunt’s love for turtles was overly represented in that pet shop, and in her own animals at home.

As a slightly older preteen I would go the meeting of the Bay Area turtle and Tortoise Society, sometimes catching rides with older friends I could talk into the adventure some 50 miles away from home to Berkeley where the meeting were held. I found myself at this age wondering about the future of turtles in the wild. The pivotal awareness came from a manipulation of water reservoirs in Marin County CA.

Several reservoirs were drained during the fall of one year to prompt voters to pass a bond to support more reservoirs, unfortunately that winter provided little rain and several stabile populations of western pond turtles were disrupted. One member of that turtle club decided to solicit people who had to idle their swimming pools to keep the turtles for a year, until rain returned and the turtles could be returned to their reservoirs. My small role was to tag the turtles for follow-up. My typical teen interest led me to cute girls and fast cars, California living at its teen best, but no follow-up on those turtles.

During that same period early teens I had amassed a reasonable collection of pet turtles including what are now multi $$ thousand exotics as well as common domestic species. That collection was given away too many people as the cars, girls, a swim team, Boy Scouts and working odd jobs around my high school schedule took over. My Eagle project was to put a cattle exclusion fence up around the Fairfield Osborne Nature preserve in Sonoma County, there was/is a large population of western pond turtles there.

An initial interest to pursue zoology in college was dismissed by both academic advisers and family. Undergraduate college was a ‘no pet turtle’ or turtle conservation period of my life. Fast forward to post college, with a mishmash of schooling that ended with a degree in Agricultural Production. I became a volunteer at what is now the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, and had a great time being in that Reptile house with some truly unique and wonderful herps. A few turtles started coming back into my home around then, somehow like a pathogen or passion, the turtle interest was re-rooted into my life.

Some work related to animals husbandry in farming transitioned into an actual job at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo after enough volunteer hours added up to the requisite experience. At about the same time, I with a few others, founded the San Joaquin Herpetological society. The SJHS was a big instant success, still pre-internet; it was the go to place for people with a herp interest.

That’s where I met Yvonne who I now think of as my ‘turtle wife’. However I ended up going to the Philadelphia Zoo, and again, the collection of animals was paired down and Yvonne became a life saver for me, keeping many of the turtles and tortoises until I could sort things out.

These two collections built and dispersed and the few conservation projects I had been involved with set a stage for a third much more substantive collection and what I reported on elsewhere as the Asian Scholarship Program for In-situ Chelonian Conservation. That third collection was dispersed as I went back to school and worked multiple full and part time jobs to make up for the poor income zoo keepers are subjected to for virtue of the fun and privilege to work at a zoo. Not having a collection at home also afforded the time and resources to get a graduate degree in organismal biology.

Now back in California again and having Yvonne further help with maintaining a multisite collection I am again considering what kind of conservation initiatives I can become involved with. The local natural history museum and the local ‘authorities’ seem to have no use for someone like myself, with one foot in captive animals and one in native or natural populations.

I would like to more emulate those few folks who have been able to partially or wholly sustain themselves with breeding and selling with a pet turtle/tortoise enterprise, but still also be contributing to wild chelonian conservation. I have a strong idea about when conservation is hubristic meddling and ego empire building versus keeping wild turtles wild in the wild. This has brought some conflict, but I’m okay with that.

So - what to do?

I stumbled across something that I hope will set a trend.

When people use PayPal they select what kind of transaction it will be- commerce versus family or friend. PayPal charges 3% to those in commerce but leaves that money alone for the friend and family transaction. When I sell tortoises I noticed some people use the friend and family option. I get a small 3% bonus on the sale.

I have decided to give that bonus to turtle and tortoise conservation efforts. I prefer small one man shows, the bang for the buck is so much higher. Like in business it has the greatest ROI, and rarely a large overall return. I’ll ask that you trust me on this POV, I am very sure of my statement.

I will never ask a customer to use the friend and family method, because then they lose the ability to seek a refund directly with PayPal, it can be risky for a new relationship to hope for that much trust to work. But whenever that is the case that 3% is going to go to the conservation program of my choice. It’s a bit of a conservation “tax” funded by trust between the buyer and me. I’ll sooner or later offer information on where the $$ went, so that it’s not all suspected as feces to promote sales. The reckoning is never going to be public; it will always be private between me and my accountant. The recipient can talk it up or not - that would never be a condition, and the first recipient has been asked to keep it to themselves. I’ll out myself later when it seems appropriate to me.

I hope this can be a trending way to allow those of us who are small scale breeders to offer a bit back to the chelonians in the wild. It will not cost me anything, it’s $$ that is based on the trust a buyer has for me as a seller. I believe this could collectively make a substantial difference.

That’s why I call it armchair chelonian conservation. I collect some $$ passively, and send it on, all while sitting in a chair.
 

Yvonne G

Old Timer
TFO Admin
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
93,388
Location (City and/or State)
Clovis, CA
Sounds good, Will. In that same vein, I shop Amazon Smile and they donate a percentage of my purchase to a charity of my choice, and so far, naturally, my choice has been turtle related.

We now have almost 50 leopard eggs cookin'. This means more 3% donations in our future!!


(you posted this 4 minutes ago, and so far I'm the only 'viewer' who bit on the live naked people thing)
 

dmmj

The member formerly known as captain awesome
10 Year Member!
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
19,695
Location (City and/or State)
CA
just remember as a moderator it's my job to check out suspicious threads my interest in this thread was purely for the protection of the form honest
 

wellington

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
49,658
Location (City and/or State)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Okay, I too was wonder what in the world was happening. Will being a member for some time now, I couldnt believe what he could be doing. Then when I seen dmmj had posted, I thought oh no:p.
That's a great thing Will. Hopefully others will follow. I too, do the Amazon smile.

Notice how many mods are here:eek:
 

Kapidolo Farms

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
5,172
Location (City and/or State)
South of Southern California, but not Mexico
It's much more intimate to bare your soul than your body.
I knew someone would understand 'naked' has a depth beyond skin. A nude image of me would shut down the whole of the internet, we don't want that.
Sounds good, Will. In that same vein, I shop Amazon Smile and they donate a percentage of my purchase to a charity of my choice, and so far, naturally, my choice has been turtle related.

We now have almost 50 leopard eggs cookin'. This means more 3% donations in our future!!


(you posted this 4 minutes ago, and so far I'm the only 'viewer' who bit on the live naked people thing)
It is a thing! or Thang as some might say.

I so look forward to more neonates, now that I'm in a house and have lots of room, it is more pleasure than I imagined.

NAKED, more image rich than an actual naked person. What's that thing I said one time to the hot babe at the local adult beverage establishment. "You have dressed in such a way that there is little left to the imagination, yet my imagination is running wild". Yeah Haw
 

Anyfoot

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2014
Messages
6,309
Location (City and/or State)
UK Sheffield
Armchair forays into chelonian conservation.

“This will be brief, no matter how long it takes.” Former Mayor of Philadelphia, John Street.

My life has been a long and bumpy road, I’m glad to have shared it with so many chelonians

As a very young child, about 3 or 4, I had two red-ear sliders and two reeves turtles in a plastic bowl with a plastic palm tree and they were fed hamburger on a toothpick. My parents ‘disappeared’ their enclosure and deaths when I wasn’t looking, they knew I had become very attached in a short time. Later in my pre-teens I got to work for my Aunt and Uncle’s pet shop, my Aunt’s love for turtles was overly represented in that pet shop, and in her own animals at home.

As a slightly older preteen I would go the meeting of the Bay Area turtle and Tortoise Society, sometimes catching rides with older friends I could talk into the adventure some 50 miles away from home to Berkeley where the meeting were held. I found myself at this age wondering about the future of turtles in the wild. The pivotal awareness came from a manipulation of water reservoirs in Marin County CA.

Several reservoirs were drained during the fall of one year to prompt voters to pass a bond to support more reservoirs, unfortunately that winter provided little rain and several stabile populations of western pond turtles were disrupted. One member of that turtle club decided to solicit people who had to idle their swimming pools to keep the turtles for a year, until rain returned and the turtles could be returned to their reservoirs. My small role was to tag the turtles for follow-up. My typical teen interest led me to cute girls and fast cars, California living at its teen best, but no follow-up on those turtles.

During that same period early teens I had amassed a reasonable collection of pet turtles including what are now multi $$ thousand exotics as well as common domestic species. That collection was given away too many people as the cars, girls, a swim team, Boy Scouts and working odd jobs around my high school schedule took over. My Eagle project was to put a cattle exclusion fence up around the Fairfield Osborne Nature preserve in Sonoma County, there was/is a large population of western pond turtles there.

An initial interest to pursue zoology in college was dismissed by both academic advisers and family. Undergraduate college was a ‘no pet turtle’ or turtle conservation period of my life. Fast forward to post college, with a mishmash of schooling that ended with a degree in Agricultural Production. I became a volunteer at what is now the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, and had a great time being in that Reptile house with some truly unique and wonderful herps. A few turtles started coming back into my home around then, somehow like a pathogen or passion, the turtle interest was re-rooted into my life.

Some work related to animals husbandry in farming transitioned into an actual job at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo after enough volunteer hours added up to the requisite experience. At about the same time, I with a few others, founded the San Joaquin Herpetological society. The SJHS was a big instant success, still pre-internet; it was the go to place for people with a herp interest.

That’s where I met Yvonne who I now think of as my ‘turtle wife’. However I ended up going to the Philadelphia Zoo, and again, the collection of animals was paired down and Yvonne became a life saver for me, keeping many of the turtles and tortoises until I could sort things out.

These two collections built and dispersed and the few conservation projects I had been involved with set a stage for a third much more substantive collection and what I reported on elsewhere as the Asian Scholarship Program for In-situ Chelonian Conservation. That third collection was dispersed as I went back to school and worked multiple full and part time jobs to make up for the poor income zoo keepers are subjected to for virtue of the fun and privilege to work at a zoo. Not having a collection at home also afforded the time and resources to get a graduate degree in organismal biology.

Now back in California again and having Yvonne further help with maintaining a multisite collection I am again considering what kind of conservation initiatives I can become involved with. The local natural history museum and the local ‘authorities’ seem to have no use for someone like myself, with one foot in captive animals and one in native or natural populations.

I would like to more emulate those few folks who have been able to partially or wholly sustain themselves with breeding and selling with a pet turtle/tortoise enterprise, but still also be contributing to wild chelonian conservation. I have a strong idea about when conservation is hubristic meddling and ego empire building versus keeping wild turtles wild in the wild. This has brought some conflict, but I’m okay with that.

So - what to do?

I stumbled across something that I hope will set a trend.

When people use PayPal they select what kind of transaction it will be- commerce versus family or friend. PayPal charges 3% to those in commerce but leaves that money alone for the friend and family transaction. When I sell tortoises I noticed some people use the friend and family option. I get a small 3% bonus on the sale.

I have decided to give that bonus to turtle and tortoise conservation efforts. I prefer small one man shows, the bang for the buck is so much higher. Like in business it has the greatest ROI, and rarely a large overall return. I’ll ask that you trust me on this POV, I am very sure of my statement.

I will never ask a customer to use the friend and family method, because then they lose the ability to seek a refund directly with PayPal, it can be risky for a new relationship to hope for that much trust to work. But whenever that is the case that 3% is going to go to the conservation program of my choice. It’s a bit of a conservation “tax” funded by trust between the buyer and me. I’ll sooner or later offer information on where the $$ went, so that it’s not all suspected as feces to promote sales. The reckoning is never going to be public; it will always be private between me and my accountant. The recipient can talk it up or not - that would never be a condition, and the first recipient has been asked to keep it to themselves. I’ll out myself later when it seems appropriate to me.

I hope this can be a trending way to allow those of us who are small scale breeders to offer a bit back to the chelonians in the wild. It will not cost me anything, it’s $$ that is based on the trust a buyer has for me as a seller. I believe this could collectively make a substantial difference.

That’s why I call it armchair chelonian conservation. I collect some $$ passively, and send it on, all while sitting in a chair.
Very nice Will. But off topic. :D
 

Kapidolo Farms

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
5,172
Location (City and/or State)
South of Southern California, but not Mexico
Very nice Will. But off topic. :D
My thread, my topic, yeah! Now I'm flip flopping back to captive animals, but it's still a naked reality.

With seeing @Tom 's image rich description, and now having seen them live, I am jumping into building a some night houses. I had considered using plastic lumber and aluminum siding in an effort to eliminate termite and other insect issues, but came across using a boric acid wash that can go directly on the wood. So first step in my build is placing the boric acid on what will be the inside surface of the panels/walls of the night house. Inside the wall itself or the C side of the plywood.

wood.jpg
Some people believe that termites won't go into plywood, but in fact they will, they will even go through Sheetrock to eat the paper. The foam which I will use already has some vermin repellent quality to it. The boric soaks through to the A side of the plywood, it's fantastic stuff, with a 30 year effective life if kept dry. Here is the web page for this particular brand http://nisuscorp.com/builders/products/BORA-CARE I've treated most of the exposed wood in the attic space of my house, and when I have had occasion to open a hole in a wall, I foam it with this stuff. I also bought a foaming agent, and when mixed in it will hold about an inch of foam on a vertical surface until the boric acid penetrates the wood and dries, the foam does not slough. For this application though gravity is my friend, and it just soaks in.

I have gone over a bazillion ideas about size and construction, and Tom made a suggestion, use the dimensions of 16 inches and 32 inches from a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, to maximize the wood to coverage area. I had been thinking going with a full 4 x 8 foot print, but that is excessive for the tortoises that will use this hide/night house. So the foot print will be slightly less than 32" wide by 80" long, that will be the actual roof size. This defies what I learned in calculus, but then again it does not, in that the limitation is based on the standard plywood sheet.

I had to finish Darth's night-house first, he is so far preferring not to use it, but that's okay, it's different than @yvonne 's night houses which are essentially walk-in rooms for people as much as the tortoise. Then there are many honeydo things popping up, making drape and curtain rod enclosures that continue around the room for rope light etc.

Tonight when I get home, though, it's the fun stuff for me, working on the nighthouse.
 
Last edited:

Anyfoot

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2014
Messages
6,309
Location (City and/or State)
UK Sheffield
My thread, my topic, yeah! Now I'm flip flopping back to captive animals, but it's still a naked reality.

With seeing @Tom 's image rich description, and now having seen them live, I am jumping into building a some night houses. I had considered using plastic lumber and aluminum siding in an effort to eliminate termite and other insect issues, but came across using a boric acid wash that can go directly on the wood. So first step in my build is placing the boric acid on what will be the inside surface of the panels/walls of the night house. Inside the wall itself or the C side of the plywood.

View attachment 144143
Some people believe that termites won't go into plywood, but in fact they will, they will even go through Sheetrock to eat the paper. The foam which I will use already has some vermin repellent quality to it. The boric soaks through to the A side of the plywood, it's fantastic stuff, with a 30 year effective life if kept dry. Here is the web page for this particular brand http://nisuscorp.com/builders/products/BORA-CARE I've treated most of the exposed wood in the attic space of my house, and when I have had occasion to open a hole in a wall, I foam it with this stuff. I also bought a foaming agent, and when mixed in it will hold about an inch of foam on a vertical surface until the boric acid penetrates the wood and dries, the foam does not slough. For this application though gravity is my friend, and it just soaks in.

I have gone over a bazillion ideas about size and construction, and Tom made a suggestion, use the dimensions of 16 inches and 32 inches from a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, to maximize the wood to coverage area. I had been thinking going with a full 4 x 8 foot print, but that is excessive for the tortoises that will use this hide/night house. So the foot print will be slightly less than 32" wide by 80" long, that will be the actual roof size. This defies what I learned in calculus, but then again it does not, in that the limitation is based on the standard plywood sheet.

I had to finish Darth's night-house first, he is so far preferring not to use it, but that's okay, it's different than @yvonne 's night houses which are essentially walk-in rooms for people as much as the tortoise. Then there are many honeydo things popping up, making drape and curtain rod enclosures that continue around the room for rope light etc.

Tonight when I get home, though, it's the fun stuff for me, working on the nighthouse.
Man you guys really do have it harder than us with pest critters.
It's not a problem for me, but how do you guys deal with overheating in summer months?Not just in hides but in incubators. Well actually we had a 3 day spell at 37°c. My incubator got up to 32° from a setting of 28.9°c
 

Kapidolo Farms

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
5,172
Location (City and/or State)
South of Southern California, but not Mexico
Man you guys really do have it harder than us with pest critters.
It's not a problem for me, but how do you guys deal with overheating in summer months?Not just in hides but in incubators. Well actually we had a 3 day spell at 37°c. My incubator got up to 32° from a setting of 28.9°c

When I lived in Fresno I had a small basement, and that is where the incubator was kept, a very constant temp all year. In Carlsbad (San Diego area) my temps don't get above the high 80's. It ends up meaning losing a few eggs and getting more females otherwise.

There are controllers and devices to both heat and cool. I have not seen a "plug-n-play" incubator sold through pet stores that does this well, but they can be made with some bit of trial and error.
 

Kapidolo Farms

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
5,172
Location (City and/or State)
South of Southern California, but not Mexico
wood 2.jpg


So this is the first cut, the largest piece will be the outer surface of the lid, it is 79-7/8 inches by 31-7/8. The longer of the two narrow pieces is 16 by 96 inches and the shorter piece is 16 by 48 inches. As the walls need to be uniform in height, I let the blade width waste be taken from the piece that will be the lid. The long narrow piece will now be one side of one long side wall, the shorter piece will serve the same purpose for an end wall.

When I cut the inside piece for the lid, I will do the same basic cuts, but the inside of the lid will be marginally narrower, and it will fit inside the rim of the lid. The long piece will match the other long piece for one long side wall, and the same with the short piece for an end wall.

The same general process will be used when I make the floor. So, four sheets of plywood will make a box 70 inches by 32. There will be a little waste in that the inside lid panel and the floor are an inch or so smaller than the lid or bottom. By keeping the sides at a constant 16 inches the project costs will be held to the four pieces of plywood and the 'spacer boards so that the walls can contain the insulation. More images to follow.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Kapidolo Farms

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
5,172
Location (City and/or State)
South of Southern California, but not Mexico

Yvonne G

Old Timer
TFO Admin
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
93,388
Location (City and/or State)
Clovis, CA
I love watching thing being built. Thanks for this. As you know, I'm quite the builder myself, however, I really don't have the skills, so seeing someone else do a project helps me learn how to do it.
 
Top