My name is Shantell and I have a RES named Ky Niem. I have been a turtle owner since I was 8 years old owning 1 female named Stacy (RES), 2 males named Biscuit and Dwilo (both RES), and one unknown sex named Spankie Palastre (Yellow-bellied Slider). Each turtle I've had the pleasure of taking care of holds a special place in my heart and they all have history that I would like to share with you all. I shall start with my first turtle named Spankie Palastre.
Spankie was not alone when I first got him/her. He/She was accompanied by 3 other yellow bellied sliders. I got all of them from my dad as a reward for making all A's on my report card. They all had their own special names (Twin 1, Twin 2, Spankie, and Left-Eye). Twin 1 and Twin 2 were named because I ran out of cute individual names. Left-Eye got his name because my dad accidentally dug his/her eye out while he was raking leaves (that’s how he found them), and Spankie wasn't yet named. Sadly everyone except Spankie died of dehydration. Now before you judge me, I would like to explain to you that I was an uneducated 8 year old with no money, no sense of what it took to care for an animal, and no research skills whatsoever (come one I was like in elementary school give me a break). I was able to save one turtle before he/she died and with the help of my sister we named him/her Spankie. I know now that you’re not supposed to handle turtle all that much, but when I was young I handled Spankie like never before. He/She was in my purse, I took him/her on long car rides, and I even slept with him/her. I didn't know anything about salmonella poisoning or the painful experience of a turtle bite so I was kissing Spankie as well. Spankie was my best friend in the whole wide world. We shared a special child and turtle relationship for 2.5 years. Spankie then began to develop this big white patch on the back of his/her neck like someone had split his/her neck wide open. Spankie's left arm also began to swell twice its size and he/she never used it when he/she would walk. After a while, Spankie just stopped walking in general and began to sleep for long periods of time. I began to get worried that he might die so I begged my parents to take him to the vet. They diagnosed Spankie with pneumonia and he died not even two months later.
OMG I cried so much! I never felt so much pain and agony. This was my first time experiencing death and I wasn't prepared for the blow.Around two to three months before Spankie died my sister bought Stacy from an online turtle store. Stacy was bright green and very different from Spankie. I didn't feel that special bond between us so I stayed away from her for a while. My father came across a brand new 20 gallon turtle tank ( we were keeping Spankie and Stacy in a 10 gallon tank w/o water just gardening dirt from Wal-Mart) and gave it to us. This is around the time we realized we were keeping them in horrible living conditions and I felt even worst because now I knew I was the reason my best friend was dead. So to prevent death from knocking on our door again, my sister and I researched proper living conditions for a turtle. We realized she needed water, a basking area, filter, the right temperature, and a filter. I begged my sister to purchase all of that to keep Stacy alive and she did. I felt better once Stacy was living in better conditions. She stayed happy and was living in by herself (growing happily) for about a year and a half before we acquired biscuit.
Somewhere along the lines my sister felt that Stacy was my turtle and she wanted her own. Biscuit was a quarter when he came into our life. He still had the tooth on the front of his face! We thought they would live perfectly together.........until we placed them in the tank. Stacy immediately started biting at Biscuit's feet. I had to separate them and Biscuit began to live by himself in Stacy's old 10 gallon tank. They stayed like that for another year and oh boy did Biscuit grow. I began to get sick and tired of cleaning two tanks by myself every two weeks and tried putting biscuit in the tank with Stacy again. She immediately coward away from him and this is when I realized that Stacy was a female and Biscuit was a male. Another two years went by in harmony. Biscuit would try to mate with Stacy, she wouldn't be paying him any attention. He would "fan" her face and expose his penis. I was happy that they lasted as long as they did. One day I came home from school and Stacy and Biscuit were gone. They weren't in their tank I thought my mom was in the process of cleaning them (she did clean their tank on very rare occasions) so I asked her where they were. My mom sat me down and began explaining this long process of how she basically was tired of having them around and decided to throw them in a nearby creek. I wasn't as heartbroken the first time as I was with Spankie but it still hurt. Stacy and Biscuit were a comedy show all on their own. I didn't need television to have a good laugh. However I was very sad for a long time once she got rid of them.
After I moved out of my parent’s house I had one goal in mind to rekindle what I lost in my childhood years. I immediately bought the entire set up again and got a RES who I named Dwilo (his name is Korean and it means backwards). I based his name strictly off of his personality. This turtle would not move until he's stared behind him for at least five minutes. I had Dwilo for 4 months. He was very different from what I was expecting and he would always bite us (me and my boyfriend) when we went to put him in his feeding tank. I only had one biting experience and it was not pleasant. Our anniversary came around and I really wanted two turtles. We bought Ky Niem (hence my username). It’s Vietnamese and it means anniversary. I placed him in the tank with Dwilo and Dwilo immediately attacked Ky Niem. I had already had my full share of Dwilo's aggression and decided Dwilo was not going to be a part of our family any longer. Since I got both Dwilo and Ky Niem from petco I thought it would be a good idea to return the bad turtle (Dwilo) and get my money back in the process. After doing that I was once again down to one turtle. *Sigh*
Ky Niem is a very chill turtle. He allows you to stroke his head and his forearms. He even lets you play with his tail (I think he's had an owner before). We're definitely going to wait a while before we get another turtle and this time I am going to make sure it’s a girl before I buy her.
