We have three cats, two pac-man frogs, two firebellied frogs, a bearded dragon, two russian tortoises, two dumbo rats, three hermit crabs.... and two red eared sliders.
My first red eared slider, Tsuzuki, I got a little over 3 years ago. She's in a 75 gallon tank, and she is my baby. She had a bit of a problem about 4 months ago where part of her shell overgrew and was cutting into her head, and this cut ended up getting infected. Soooo it was injections every day under her arms and living outside of her tank for all but a couple of hours a day for awhile, and rubbing cream on her head.... (ever had to give your turtle injections? they don't like it too much, to say the least!) oh it was work and it was VERY expensive but hey, she's my baby. She's also managed to surprise my vet because he had never seen a red ear with a clean fecal
Surprisingly enough, my previous vet (before we moved) was surprised because she never saw any live as long as mine, she was always seeing babies who had health problems due to improper habitat. I have to say, the pet store I got her from was VERY informative and VERY honest about their information--Tsu came home with a UVB bulb and a warning of her eventual size and life expectancy. Hooray for local pet stores with knowledgeable staff, and a mother who said "okay, I'll get you a turtle... but first you have to spend some time researching it to make sure we do everything right".
She's gorgeous! She's actually bigger (and this was taken in her 30 gallon tank about a year and a half ago) but I love this picture.
Her shell is a little off--we fought a loooong battle to get her to eat greens of any kind and she had a slight vitamin A deficency, but we did the "tough love" routine (thanks to my fiance... I'm not good at the tough love routine) and her shell is not getting any worse, and her diet is much more varied and complete.
My other red ear, affectionately called "Little Turd", came into my possession after two of my friends found her outside their apartment. I did the whole "grr leave her alone" thing, but it was a lost cause, and they were very serious about it--they had me take them to the pet store to do "everything right" (sidenote, I ended up arguing with the cashier about how to care for them)--I taught them about temperatures, about water quality, about proper lighting (I even paid for the UVB bulb because they were "going to wait awhile" since it was expensive), everything.
but then the calls started. she was very fidgetty (as one would expect since she had come from outside and wasn't used to people like one in a pet store might be), they didn't want to clean the tank as often as they should, and really I think it came down to the fact that they wanted a pet they could hold and play with, and thats definately not a turtle. So after they had her about a month, she came to live with me.
She's in a 10 gallon right now, but in a couple of months I'll be moving her up to Tsuzuki's old 30 gallon. What am I going to do when they're BOTH as big as Tsu is now? Oh gods I don't want to think about that right now
But after being with me a month or two, she calmed down. She'll bask now and not get all excited if we walk by, she has no qualms about begging for food (she'll even eat out of my fiance's hand), and when we take her out to clean her tank or weigh her, she'll sit calmly on our hand.
Sorry I don't have any really good pictures of her (she moves so fast!) and its 6AM so its not really time for a photo op
They both eat dandelion greens, collard, mustard greens, and occasionally kale. Tsu is CRAZY for cucumber, so when I make salad I give her a piece or two. Whenever we feed her greens she grabs them out of our hands and flies across the tank with them in her mouth--we call her the great hunter
We give Tsu feeder fish every now and then, but she's too lazy to chase them anymore XD They also get the occasional treat from the bearded dragon's plate--crickets, silk worms, phoenix worms, etc.
SO I managed to ramble on about them for awhile, but those are my babies. They take up a lot of my time and money, but they're worth it.
