Everyone does it different. I rarely charge an adoption fee. Some turtles are with me for months, some for a year. True, not all will see a vet, but if it needs a vet visit, it gets it. What kind of homes do I get without charging a fee?

- Adopter with 7000 gallon pond that adopted five adult female sliders over a year. He drove half an hour to pick up two from animal control for me (which he adopted). Two of the turtles came straight from owners who dropped off their turtles to him, so they confirmed the set-up for me. And he sent me pictures of the turtles basking in his pond the next year.
- Kathy, mom to Harpo the Sulcata. Harpo isn't with us any longer, but he lived his last years on TWO fenced ACRES in the summers, with a hill to dig in (compared to the bathtub he was living in with the original owners). Kathy spent a considerable amount of money trying to save him in the last month of his life. She also educated many people along the way.
- Adopter in Indiana of a three-legged male eastern box turtle. Adopter paid for health certificate, fecal, and microchipping, plus the permit from his state to keep a native turtle. He would have paid for shipping, but we had a transport going that way any way.

This is just a sample. If someone's first query to me is "How much for the turtle?", then I'm more leery and might quote a small fee. Still, a bad application is a bad application. Generally if I write my description of the animal well, I get fewer bad queries.

I work a second job so I can keep doing rescue. That's my choice. Even if I did charge an adoption fee, it would be so little compared to what I spend that I'd probably still have to have a second job.

Katrina

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