redearslider.com

or rather, i should say former turtle owner. we went out to eat lastnight and the waiter, seeing my shirt w/ a bat on it, must've assumed we were that type of owners so he asked us if we had a snake. i said no, but i want one, we have two turtles.

i told them the habitat's expensive, he said why? he asked me what i fed them and i told him fresh veggies and pellets he said oh no no. let me guess, they're red eared sliders *nods* they're aquatic turtles (duh, that's why their habitat's so expensive) you should feed them fish. i told him that is in their diet as well. he said he used to have a red ear slider that he fed nothing but rosie reds (which he said were goldfish - i thought they were minnows?) and it was this big when it died *holds out hands* eyeball measurement was about 4½" maybe 5"

those two things were what tipped me off that he wasn't stellar at the turtle care. i tried to call him on it, asking if feeding his turt so much protein caused any pyramiding. he looked at me confused and asked what was that. i tried to explain it to him, watching as his perplexion deepened as i mentioned the word ''scutes" COME ON! i'm a total n00b at this and even i know better! he interrupted me and said ''i don't know what she's talking about" to my boyfriend, took the order and walked off.

he gave me his number before this, saying he could get me a good setup at discount. i don't think i'll be using it. not looking to get anything, least of all turtle care advice, from someone who's so blatantly clueless. i can understand ignorance, it's not like we magically know this stuff once we bring the turtles home. but he was just so cocky, and seems to have led himself to believe there's no need to check himself.

i just wanted to share the frustration. and the sadness for that poor little turtle. i was thinking i could get another copy of my res care guide and bring it to him, so he realises that he did not take good care of the turtle and 5" is nothing to boast about. i certainly hope his python is getting better care than that turtle did.

Gah, I hate that... The family that Napoleon came from still have another turtle, and they have it in a 10 gallon tank with about an inch of water, no uvb bulb, no heater etc etc... And when I asked her about it she was like, oh yeah, his water is 62 degrees in the winter and we took most of the water out because he wasn't basking and it was doing something to his shell and the regular lightbulb works fine! I didn't want to insult her because she's my best friends mom and she really was trying, she had some turtle book that she had read and was basing everything on that, but since then I've been trying to convince them to let me adopt him. It's really my friend's brother's turtle, but he left for college so the mother is doing everything now, and she won't give up the turtle until he says it's ok, and he won't answer my emails!!! I definitely get your frustration, there's just something about pet ownership, people don't want to believe that they don't know everything.

It's a darn good thing that snakes don't need nearly as much equipment/special lighting etc as turtles do.

Pumpkinsherbert, for what it's worth, I completely understand your frustration.

I know I wasn't doing everything perfect for my adult RES either, but being on this website during the last year has helped me gain a lot more insight and improve her life as well as take on my new hatchling RES! Usually when I run into people like that & I tell them that my turtle is older than 17 yrs plus I have a 6.5 yr old aquatic frog, they shut up pretty quickly! Heck, 17 yrs is longer than most people keep dogs or cats!

I still think it was good that you told this guy some things you knew about turtle care. I can also guarantee that he was still thinking about it after you left.

I think some people don't believe that animals no matter what type have feelings. It really makes me get on a soapbox when people are so backwards about them. It's ok to not have all the answers as long as you are willing to learn and put it into action.

i'm with all of you! my biggest frustration was definitely the fact that he was acting like such an expert about it and he quite obviously wasn't. i told a coworker the story and he was like ''he came to the wrong person with that bad information!!!" i know better than to call myself an expert, but i do my homework!