Reptile & Amphibian Forums

since im still fairly new i was just wondering if ppl can post a pic of thier tort and a description (age, weight, size, gender, name, and cute things they do)and any personal info ur willing to share. also any personal advice would be awsome, if u will post i will read...lol

Boy oh boy..where do I start..LOL.
I live in Hot Sunny AZ, it's going to be 94 again today.
I have 4 torts, 3 Sulcatas and 1 Marginated.
6 dogs and no I don't run a rescue I just love my dogs...and here goes:
50 (my first Sulcata) is 4 years old, she's about 8 pounds 11 inches in length.
Mocha is 2 years old, she's just under 2 pounds and 6 inches in length.
Sampson my new baby Sulcata is still tiny--probably only 2 months old...and
Murphy is my 1 year old Marginated.
Murphy and Sampson were both found wandering the streets and they called me for pick up, although they were each found 1 year apart from each other.

Here's photos:

>>Here's photos:

Beautiful they are!!
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PHRatz

I don't know our tortoise's age, her weight is about 75lbs.
Her size.. I've been meaning to go out & measure her but I keep forgetting.
I'll do that soon, she's in her home right now, too hard to crawl in there & get measurements.

Her name is Destiny because fate brought her to us.
We don't know where she came from she was found on some rancher's property, shot 3 times with a .22 and then brought to Pet's Mart by the rancher. Employees there didn't know what she was, they just knew she wasn't native.
I ended up with her because they knew I had a place to keep her.
I was going to keep her for a few days until a home could be found. Although I wanted to keep her I just knew the hubby wouldn't so I seriously planned to find her a home.
He came home that first day & saw her, it was love at first sight. He said What is that? I said it's a sulcata, he said WOW IT'S COOL!!
5 years later she's our big baby girl.
She was horribly pyramided, sick, hurt but today after 5 years of free ranging & vet treatment she's very healthy.
Here's our baby:

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PHRatz

Phratz I had no idea Destiny was shot with a gun--geez!! how can people do that? Great outcome, glad she ended up with you.

>>Phratz I had no idea Destiny was shot with a gun--geez!! how can people do that? Great outcome, glad she ended up with you.

I know I don't get it. HOW could anyone DO that? Even 5 years later I can get really really bent out of shape when I think about it but.. she's ok now so I have to let it go!

Today I came home from buying pet foods and she was right in front of the gate so I couldn't get the car in. Some people in an SUV stopped because they'd seen her. They asked all about her & that's exactly what the man said. WHY would anyone want to shoot her? I said what I always say.. some people are just mean!

That odd gray color on her shell is where the vet has covered the bullet holes. They still are not completely healed but it's been a year now since the old acrylic was removed & this layer was put on.. I think once this starts to wear off she more than likely won't need any new acrylic applied. She's had it done then redone 4 times now since she got here.
I'm hoping there's enough healed now that she won't need anything else done.
Thanks for the kind words, I agree it's been a great outcome because after we took her in I found out that oh my gosh who'da thunk it would happen this way??? It turns out that where we live is very similar to her native land & we just happened to already have all the different foods growing here that she needs... that has got to be fate!
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PHRatz

Wow-Amazing what vets can do..acrylic--so neat!
Did they end up removing the bullets or did they just cover up the wounds?
I had a vet I worked with for quite awhile with a parrot I had--and we ended up making her a body collar out of x-ray film to keep her from digging at herself. It was like she had armor on her whole body.

What's it like in Texas right now? Here it is Nov 3rd and I think right now at noon it's about 87 right now--supposed to be 85-90 all week long. Getting ready to let the fellers out in the yard to move around and graze.

>>Wow-Amazing what vets can do..acrylic--so neat!
>>Did they end up removing the bullets or did they just cover up the wounds?
Well what happened is, this is one time it was a good thing to be horribly pyramided. Her "spikes" on her back were so prominent that the bullets went right through them & out of her without hitting anything vital in her body.
One of the people who worked at Pet's Mart at the time was a retired police officer who said those are .22 bullet holes, then the first vet who treated her used to be a large animal vet who is used to dealing with hunters & hunting, he said the same thing.
The bullet holes were covered then our herp vet moved here & opened a hospital. I started taking her to that vet instead.
The worst bullet hole had caused her shell to crack & the crack was growing so the new vet redid all the work on her shell & fixed the crack. It looked like it was going to run all the way down to the marginal area & possibly cause a huge chunk of her carapace to fall off, so it HAD to be repaired.
A year later all you could see of that crack was a scar line. It all grew back together.

>>I had a vet I worked with for quite awhile with a parrot I had--and we ended up making her a body collar out of x-ray film to keep her from digging at herself. It was like she had armor on her whole body.
It's wonderful what vets can do today compared to the dark ages that were just 20-30 years ago!

>>
>>What's it like in Texas right now? Here it is Nov 3rd and I think right now at noon it's about 87 right now--supposed to be 85-90 all week long. Getting ready to let the fellers out in the yard to move around and graze.

It's been in the 80s all week & is expected to be the same for at least another. It's been cold enough at night to run the heater some but most of the time the air conditioner is on.

It's been so warm that this morning our wild male box turtle who lives inside our fence was out walking this morning. Surprised the heck out of me because usually by the 3rd week of Oct. he's gone & I don't see him until spring.
Destiny though has been loving it. She's been staying out from about 9 am to 5 pm every day for the last couple of weeks.
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PHRatz

Poor Destiny--that's such a neat story though!! Like I said, good thing she found you!!

So chances are once the acrylic comes off this time around she probably wont need it replaced again.

We are at 94 today! Arrrgghhhh The torts that actually do hibernate must be thouroughly confused LOL

I'm kind of late getting back over here.
The weather though, it's been really odd the last couple of weeks. We had a so called cold front move in last week, it got down into the 40s then in 2 days it was back up.
This morning around 9AM Destiny was already out & about roaming the yard because it was warm enough. I'm in shorts & T-shirt again today because it's too warm for long pants.
I still have 2 box turtles coming out in the mornings because it's just not cold enough for them to stay underground.

Makes me wonder if January & Feb. are going to be extra cold or extra warm. I guess we'll see...
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PHRatz

Phratz, Destiny is such a cutie and a trooper. She is obviously a very strong tort. It is so horrible what some people are capable of!
Dawgcr your torts are adorable too. Is the one with the half black half white shell a russian? He/she is so cool looking! Here are some more pics of our silly babies, everyone should post more pics if they have them. We love seeing everyones little monsters !

Here are a few links of our babies

http://i20.tinypic.com/neg7io.jpg
http://i24.tinypic.com/15yewe8.jpg
http://i20.tinypic.com/2resknb.jpg
http://i21.tinypic.com/ao18x5.jpg
http://i22.tinypic.com/349b449.jpg

The Black and white one is a Marginated tort..was found "wandering in the streets"..just a few days old when I got him. He's now 1 year old.
He's a very curious little tort....and somewhat shy.

Your pics are great!! They sure are fun...keep the pics coming.

>>Phratz, Destiny is such a cutie and a trooper. She is obviously a very strong tort. It is so horrible what some people are capable of!

Awwww thanks!
We love her so much, she is extremely sweet natured, I just can't understand why anyone wanted to hurt her.

Your babies are adorable! I just looked at all the pics, too cute!!
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PHRatz

Stephanie in Oregon here and my little tort Dozer approx. 6months
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Cute!!!

Dozer is beautiful!!!
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PHRatz