Reptile & Amphibian Forums

About a week or two ago, I was raking out the tortoise pen, and replacing the mulch in the dog-gloos as I do every week, and my next door neighbor walks up to me. She started a conversation with me and then she makes the comment, "You should release your tortoises". Release the sulcatas in Florida? She goes, "Yeah, I don't see why not." I said over my dead body. She went on about how she doesn't like to see animals suffer. Is freeroam of a two-acre yard and an 18foot by 21foot pen they only have to go into at night sound like 'suffering'? She goes "Well, if you'd just open up the gate, they could go on their way, and you'd feel a lot better about yourself." I said well, why don't you just open up your gate and let your "Designer" mutt dog go and then you can feel just great about yourself. She goes "Well they'd be alot better off out there. I know." I said, well how do you know? Have you kept them for eight years? She said no. I said, have you kept tortoises at all? She said no. I said, "Exactly! You don't know." Then she started about how I was violating animal rights and that she's going to call an animal shelter to come and take them to get them better homes. I turned on my ipod, finished the job and walked away. I'm still waiting for her to call an animal shelter on me!

What a wacko! Just be careful she doesn't "set them free " one day when your not home.I would stress to her the fact that they would die if released into the wild in Florida. Then I would tell her to stay the hell away from my yard or get her ass shot. Also you could try reassuring her if your torts ever come up missing so will her dog. This lady doesn't sound right in the head, I would be wary of her.

She has it in her head that eating animals is wrong, that feeding animal ingredient based dog food to her dogs is wrong. She even yells at us when we have bar-b-ques! But her brother is worse. He became homeless up in North Carolina, so she allowed him to live in Florida with her. He keeps talking about an injury he got back in 1975 that makes his health screwed up. He walked up to my father and says, "I see you hanging out here alot. Are you retired?" My father says yeah. "Well, what did you do that you can retire at 67?" My father told him that he worked in the glass trade all his life. "Well thats easy and you shouldn't be retired. That's pure laziness, you probably said you worked all your life. I worked in a number of jobs, and they never touched near as easy as the glass business." My father walked inside, was walking out to the shed, looking for "Something" in there and said, "I'm gonna tear his ass up". I had him go inside and sit down, because he would have done something he wished he hadn't.

Sulcatas would die in Florida? They would THRIVE, along with many others, Redfoots included.

My sulcatas were raised by people. The smaller one loves people and associates not only me, but all people as a place to get food. The bigger one loves kids. I let him walk out in the front yard and he will come up to kids on their bikes. The people I bought the big one from live up in South Carolina, and he was living the life there. He was allowed to go inside through a doggy-door and was raised as one of the kids. The first thing my big sulcata would do is walk up to somebody to get his neck rubbed and his head scratched. And the people that live in my area would kill him just to kill him.

Where I live in Central Florida the temp dips below freezing in the winter, unless Sulcatas can survive 28 degree temps I doubt they would live without a heat source. I found my 6" sucata crossing the road when I was driving my work truck. I thought it was a gopher tort and pulled over to get him out of the road, and to my suprise it was a sulcata. The only reason I could identify it is because I was looking into buying a tortoise and I new what they looked like. He must have escaped or was let loose by someone. It was kind of spooky actually,the week before I almost bought a herman's tortoise but decided to wait.I really did not want a Sulcata because of how big they get. I don't know what I'll do with this guy once he starts to really get big, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I would want to make sure he gets a good home, I've kinda grown attached to him and want to make sure he was well taken care of.

That's strange, finding a sulcata in Florida. Obviously, someone doesn't know how much they're worth, or just doesn't care. Big ones could probably survive at 28 degrees. Once the temps went down to about 25 and I put the 12 inch male/female, whatever the hell it is in the dog house, along with the Russian tortoises, and put a 120 watt heat lamp in there. I went over and tried to move the big male, who had dug himself in between two palm trees, and he started snorting like a damn pig. I said screw you ass hole, and left him alone. When the sun hit him at noon, he was back moving around, and had no bubbles in his nose, or anything.

Strange doesn't even begin to describe it. What are the chances that some one would find it and know what kind of tort it is. What are the chances that I was looking to get a tortoise anyway and researching them the week before and he crossed the road in front of MY truck? Anyone else wouldn't have thought twice about driving by, but I stopped and and immediately upon getting out of the truck identified it as a sulcata. I know it sounds strange but this is the same way I found my dog 4 years ago, the exact breed I was looking for. Maybe I attract pets

That is strange.....What are the odds of those two things happening? Maybe you do have some sort of ability to attract pets! I've had a number of wierd experiences, none of which involved my animals, but I do remember one night, back in 2005-2006, before this movie even came out, I had a dream of the last part of it. And this movie (DOOMSDAY), just came out in theatres in May of this year.

My wife found our Sulcata walking down the road also.

we are in arizona.

I didn't know what kind it was, but i was also looking into getting a Tortoise. I was looking into the Sonoran Desert Tortoise placement program we have here.