The saga of Buddha, Daisy, George, Lucille and a Tort with no name!

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dewbert

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Hi folks--
I'm new here and have recently discovered the joy and pain of turtle/tortoise husbandry.
As a kid, I owned a couple of turtles--all for many years and all healthy. I gave them up when my wife and I decided to start a family and we were afraid that our child would lick one and get salmonella:rolleyes:.

So, now that my daughter is 12, we decided to get back into the hobby. We spent a lot of time doing research on this and other forums and decided to go to the local reptile show (Indianapolis) and we came home with a lovely, little golden greek female. We called him Buddha until a little more research revealed that he was a she and we renamed her Daisy. Although she seemed healthy when we bought her, she was always a little on the docile and slow side.

Because we were having so much fun with Daisy and because I felt like a playmate might perk her up, we bought another greek, male and kept him in a seperate area so that we could be sure that he wouldn't bring any untoward germs into Daisy's life. This morning was the day that we were going to allow this yet-to-be-named tortoise to get to know Daisy. To our horror, when we took him into the room where Daisy was kept, we found Daisy, expired, in her water dish with a HUGE worm swimming in the water next to her. We were stunned and saddened. After burying Daisy we decided to play with this little no-named male for a while when we started noticing bubbles out of the nose and the fact that he was wheezing. We were mortified! I've kept reptiles for years and have never had such bad luck in such a short time! Because little no-name was still under the 14-day no questions asked return policy, we decided to take him back to the pet store rather than incur vet bills and get started off on the wrong foot.

After spending the afternoon driving around to other pet stores we lucked into a pair of red foots that have great personalities and seem very healthy. We talked to the manager for quite a while about them and learned that they'd been there for a while and he was wanting to sell them as a pair rather than separating them. After a little more research, we learned that we would only have to modify our turtle tub a little and invest in a few more items to switch from the greeks to the red-foots. So, we talked the manager into what I felt was a good deal ($200 for the pair) and we now have them at home--George and Lucille! We have them in a large cement mixing tub for a little while. Once the weather warms up, we'll be taking them outside and I'm going to build a table for their indoor home.

So, wish us better luck with these two! I'll post a few pix when I have a moment.

Also, thanks to everyone who participates in this forum. The information is tremendously valuable. It's nice to find a forum that has a nice balance between extremely knowledgable experts and people who rely on practical advice to keep their pets healthy and happy!
Dewbert
 

Yvonne G

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Hi Dewbert: Welcome to the forum.

Yvonne
 

Crazy1

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Hello Dewbert, welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear of the bad luck you had with your Greeks. Good luck with your RF and be sure to check out www.redfoots.com
 
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